


A Fistful of Infinity and Starlight

by junkshopdisco



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Musical, Snuggling for warmth, camping shenanigans, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 18:17:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 63,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkshopdisco/pseuds/junkshopdisco
Summary: Uther’s insane, Morgana’s plotting a new assault on Camelot, and Arthur and his knights are clueless but supposedly in charge. In the midst of it, Gwaine finds himself harbouring feelings for a man who apparently has a destiny, and learns something new about magic: it doesn’t play fair, and serving it shakes everything you hold dear – whether you’re a sorcerer or not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for paperlegends. Kind of a hypothetical series 4.

In Camelot, things are predictable, and everyone knows their place. Those with crests on their chests and the memory of a sword skipping on their shoulders will fight – maybe die – for a man who says he believes tables should be round, and history won’t bother to learn their names. Even on nights like this – deep in the woods – there’s routine to the campfire: they fall into their bedrolls at the same time after the same collection of stories about fights, women, and strange diseases they caught from plants. Predictable. Ordered. Usually. 

Gwaine squints at Merlin through the dwindling firelight. Apparently he’s decided astride Gwaine’s lap is the best position for shaking him awake. _Huh_ , Gwaine thinks. Camelot can be predicted; Merlin cannot.

‘Anyone ever tell you you sleep like you’re dead?’ Merlin whispers. 

‘My apologies. What – ’

Merlin puts a finger to his lips and Gwaine mumbles _the hell is going on?_ to his knuckle as he struggles upright.

‘Arthur,’ Merlin whispers, and his finger slips away, it and its fellows digging a plea to get up and follow into Gwaine’s shoulder.

They pick their way through scraping branches, the trees densening away from the knot of bedrolls and the comforting glow of the fire. Gwaine’s ears strain at the sounds of the forest – the sleepy creak of the trees, the crackle of foliage under foot, a distant snore he thinks belongs to Leon. It’s a whole bunch of nothing for maybe ten minutes, and then, _then_ he hears something – something which shouldn’t be there. At first it’s indistinct, a low burble off in the dark, and Merlin looks at him – _you hear that?_ Gwaine nods, concentrates, trying to force the sounds together – _a distressed animal, maybe? The last call of something to the earth before it keels over and sinks back to dirt?_ – but he can’t quite place it. Not as gruff as a badger. Not as shrill as a fox. Not pretty enough for any kind of bird.

He and Merlin follow the noise, push through hanging branches and bracken to the tree line, and edge around a fat, centuries-old oak which squats like a maiden aunt. The forest breaks and reveals a vast, moonlight-dappled lake. On the bank – where the water gently laps – crouches Arthur. He stretches out his fingers, his ring catching a glint from the moon, and touches the water in a soft, thoughtful caress, his lips moving as if in conversation with the tiny waves he’s making.

Merlin stops. His hand flits to Gwaine’s chest, quiet pressure to make him wait too. 

‘Is he – is Arthur singing?’ Gwaine says.

‘Shh. Listen.’

Gwaine rolls his eyes and huffs at the dark, but Merlin’s gaze meets his, the plea no less strong than the one in his fingers which bade Gwaine follow. Gwaine lets his attention fall back on Arthur. He’s in possession of a mediocre voice – low but lilty like a happy, absent-minded knave – and Gwaine tries to pick out the tune, picturing himself making fun of his affection for ballads or children’s rhymes. The words drift on, bringing with them no recognition, and in creeps the realisation that the song spilling from Arthur’s lips isn’t some insistent melody that infested his head at a feast. It’s new – strangely personal – and not at all the work of a professional. Gwaine cocks his head, unable to keep from smirking at the delicious and ludicrous idea forming.

‘S’he making that up? Fancies himself a minstrel on the quiet?’

‘He’s been doing it for ages, the same thing over and over and over. I think he’s singing about Gwen.’

‘Well that’s natural, I guess. He’s in love with her, feels he can’t do what he wants about it – that stuff spills out sometimes. I’ve done it myself, had one too many and then hey, there’s the poetry.’

‘It’s more than that,’ Merlin whispers, teeth scuffing his lip, eyes devoid of the laughter Gwaine expects to see in them. ‘I asked him what he was doing and he didn’t shout at me or get embarrassed – just smiled and started singing again, some stuff about – flowers and eternity.’ Merlin’s hands fall to his hips, his forehead pitting with a frown. ‘It’s weird. Like he’s gone.’ 

‘He’s having a laugh with you, Merlin.’

‘Because Arthur’s such a joker.’

‘Maybe he wanted to lighten the mood. It’s been a rough few days.’

‘Yes, because his dad’s insane, his sister’s planning a new assault on Camelot – we’re clueless and we’re in charge – it’s hardly the time for some light-hearted japery. Arthur Pendragon is not in there, silently laughing at me, believe me. Something’s wrong. Has to be.’

‘Why?’

‘Because – ’ Merlin hesitates, frowns, fidgets with his shirt before rolling his eyes with grudging defeat. ‘When I spoke to him he – he kind of sang to me.’ 

‘He sing you a ballad, Merlin?’

‘More of a – sad folk song about how he feels about me.’ Gwaine sniggers into the back of his wrist, and Merlin’s jaw tenses. ‘It’s not funny, Gwaine.’

‘No, no of course it isn’t.’

Gwaine clears his throat and pretends his voice didn’t just turn into the high-pitched squeak of an adolescent. Merlin meets his eye, tuts, and gestures to Arthur with a wave. 

‘Go and see for yourself.’

‘Can I not just go back to sleep?’

Merlin answers by shoving him the rest of the way through the trees. Gwaine staggers down the short shore, echoes the sigh of the sand as it gives beneath his feet, glancing back to where Merlin’s biting at his thumbnail. 

‘Hey, Arthur,’ Gwaine says.

Nothing. Arthur’s fingers ripple the water, and he carries on crooning, low and soft, some words about love and ladies.

‘Oy, princess.’

More nothing. Gwaine ducks down and picks up a pebble, tosses it lightly at Arthur. He sways with the impact but doesn’t flinch, and Merlin dashes to Gwaine’s side in a rustle of clothes and indignation. 

‘What are you – I meant talk to him, not slowly stone him to death.’

Gwaine ignores him, and skims another stone across the top of Arthur’s head, ruffling his hair. Merlin sighs admonishment but it morphs into a little shocked intake of breath as Arthur turns. Thrown into white blankness by the moonlight, his face hangs slack around the kind of empty smile Gwaine’s only seen etched on scarecrows with charcoal. Arthur stands slowly, advances, his arms outstretched. From his lips the tune continues to fall, his eyebrows emoting every syllable, his fingers flexing in a ploy for Gwaine’s sleeve.

‘Wh – get off.’

Gwaine wrenches his arm away and takes a step back, raising his hands between them. Arthur smiles – utterly devoid of real joy and any hint of annoyance or even indication he knows who Gwaine is – and keeps on coming, reaching for Gwaine’s chest, not relenting – or even really reacting – when Gwaine slaps his hands away. 

‘All right,’ Gwaine whispers, taking a pronounced step back. ‘That is moderately disturbing.’

‘ _See_?’ Merlin hisses, and tugs him up the bank and behind the motherly oak, Arthur grabbing for him and hugging only air.

Merlin flattens to the tree bark, and Gwaine blinks at the forest, reasoning that he’s having a nightmare. He tries to change the scene into one of the things he usually dreams about – the smell of the sea and shagging a handsome stranger (who always seems to end up looking like Merlin) against a wall. After a moment he’s forced to admit the trees are still there and Arthur’s still singing, and whatever this is, it’s probably actually happening. 

‘Am I drunk?’ Gwaine says, and Merlin tilts his head in denial. ‘Why? Why did you not get me drunk for this? We’re supposed to be friends, here.’

Merlin sighs, expression caught between a _told you so_ quirk of his eyebrow and _what the hell now?_ panic in his eyeballs. Gwaine peeks around the curve of the trunk. Arthur dips down again, softly crooning about the timelessness of sand as he picks up a handful and lets it fall through his fingers, oblivious until Gwaine shifts for a better look and cracks a twig. Arthur’s head swivels in their direction, and he burbles about a man with a mane and tangling his fingers in it. Gwaine presses back against the tree, heart pounding, head flooding with a vision of Arthur catching him and pressing him to the ground, grinning his eerie grin and singing right in his face.

‘If you have a suggestion about what to do,’ Merlin says, ‘I’m all ears.’

Gwaine closes his eyes, wishes he were someone better and bigger, someone who’d know what to do and what to say. Someone like Lancelot – or Leon – both of whom are happily snoring away, unaware and undisturbed, at the camp. He wonders why Merlin picked him to wake when he’s the least reliable and knightly of them all – and likes Arthur least to boot – fusses with his eyebrow as his brain unhelpfully supplies: _just be grateful someone needs you and do something logical for once._ Right. Logic. 

‘Maybe he has – flu,’ Gwaine says, and Merlin meets his eye sceptically. ‘Love song flu.’

‘There’s no such thing as _love song flu_.’

‘Then it’s magic, right? Could it be the water?’

‘Don’t think so. We all drank it – s’what I made that stew with earlier. Think it’s a spell. Targeted.’

‘Could Morgana have done this?’ Gwaine says. 

‘Maybe,’ Merlin says, and after a moment his hand fidgets up to his head, fingers rucking his skin. ‘If the knights see him like this they’ll lose all respect for him.’

‘You weren’t worried about me losing respect for him?’

‘You call him _princess_ to his face, Gwaine. You have a – different definition of respect. We need to figure out how to get him back to Camelot without the others – or anyone else – seeing him in this state.’

‘Right, then Gaius can – ’ 

‘No – no Gaius,’ Merlin says. ‘He has enough to do already. I’ll find a cure. No-one else needs to know.’

Merlin looks at him, eyes wide and overwrought, and the worry on his face creeps into Gwaine’s stomach and curls up tight.

‘I don’t think Arthur can ride – he’d probably compose an ode to his horse. Maybe best all round if we knock him out.’

‘There are plants,’ Merlin says, his eyes lighting up, ‘Gaius makes a sleeping draught – he taught me – ’

‘That’s great, Merlin. Can you find them in the dark and do you happen to have a pestle and mortar on you?’

‘What’s your idea, then?’ Gwaine glances down and flexes his fingers. ‘I’m not going to let you punch Arthur in the face,’ Merlin says, and meets his eye sternly. Gwaine lifts an eyebrow, waits while Merlin goes through all the other options, shaking his head as each one proves untenable. Merlin huffs shortly. ‘All right, but – do it gently.’

‘You can’t knock a man out _gently_.’

‘Well – just – catch him on his way down, then.’

Gwaine nods, strides out from the trees, and taps Arthur on the shoulder. Arthur stands, turns, mouth open around a bad rhyming couplet to do with rebel spirit. Gwaine throws the punch, catches Arthur right on the bridge of his nose. Pain blossoms across his knuckles, and Arthur – still smiling but his voice dwindling like a dying swan – falls to his knees, and lands face-first in the sand at Gwaine’s feet. 

‘ _Gwaine_.’ 

‘What? He went down so quick I missed,’ Gwaine says, and ducks to lift Arthur’s arm around his shoulders.

*

‘What do you mean, _the prince is unconscious_?’ Leon says, shoving off his blanket and staggering upright.

‘Found him like that,’ Gwaine says, surreptitiously hiding his hand, and catching a pointed look from Lancelot – who was quicker to wake and is stamping out the fire.

‘We – we think he’s been hit by a spell,’ Merlin says, hovering next to Arthur’s limp body, draped as it is over the back of his horse. 

‘A spell? Then we need to get him to the court physician immediately,’ Leon says, scanning the trees and fingering his sword.

Merlin slyly treads on Gwaine’s foot, and when Gwaine glances an _oww, what?_ at him, Merlin tips his head at Leon.

‘Oh – er – or not,’ Gwaine says, and Leon looks up from beneath his hair. ‘About Gaius, I mean. Merlin thinks he can find a cure.’ 

‘I hardly think we should take a chance with the prince’s health.’

‘It’s not a chance. Merlin knows what he’s doing – and Arthur’s done nothing but witter lately about what the court thinks of his ability to lead – might be better to keep his sudden bout of unconsciousness to ourselves, don’t you think?’

‘Uther’s condition being what it is, Arthur’s reputation for strength is vital at the moment,’ Lancelot says. ‘Perhaps the prince would thank us for being discreet?’

‘I suppose it might cause panic if word got out a sorcerer is operating so close to Camelot – but you’re suggesting what, exactly?’ Leon says. ‘That we smuggle Arthur into the castle?’

‘Not exactly tricky, is it?’ Gwaine says. ‘You can just tell the guards to piss off for ten.’

Leon eyes them one by one, forehead pinched in thought.

‘You really think you can cure him, Merlin?’ he says.

‘Gaius has been teaching me for years. Hopefully it’ll take no longer than a few minutes.’

‘Very well. We’ll ride for Camelot and there, you have the morning.’

Merlin nods, and as he mounts the horse behind Arthur’s sagged form, Gwaine thinks he sees a strange mix of relief and apprehension picked out in the shadow cast by his jaw.

*

Midday sun floods Merlin’s room, and Merlin bends so low over a book dotted with plants the page flutters when he breathes. He murmurs to himself, thumbing his lip, while Arthur sprawls unceremoniously before him like an offering, exactly where they dumped him after a long – but mercifully tuneless – ride back. Leon paces in the corner, chuntering words like _most irregular_ and _lucky to get out of this with my head_ , while Lancelot leans on the wall, surveying it all with a dark, troubled expression. Arthur stirs, saliva bubbling on his lips, the early reddened pricking of a bruise underneath his eye.

‘Come on come on come _on_ ,’ Merlin whispers, flipping a page. His fingers trail down, flip another then another then another, his eyes scanning feverishly until they latch on something. He pinches his lips together, then taps the page and murmurs, ‘Oh.’ Gwaine goes over to look, but Merlin slams the book shut, and clutches it to his chest. ‘Back in a minute.’

He darts out of the door, and immediately fills the chamber beyond with the clink of bottles and little _huh_ s and _ummn_ s as he searches. Arthur lets out a low, tuneful moan, murmurs about the lightness of love, his hand twitching on his chest. Leon meets Gwaine’s eye, suspicious, so Gwaine leans to the doorway and calls: 

‘Can you get a wriggle on, Merlin? I’m starving and it’s pickled egg day at the Rising Sun.’

A moment later Merlin appears around the doorframe, still clutching the book and a small collection of bottles filled with opaque liquids in various shades of grey. 

‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ he says, busying himself at Arthur’s side, setting the book down on the table and looking at each of the bottles in turn.

‘How bad’s the bad news?’ Leon says.

‘Quite to very.’

‘We’ll take the good first, then.’

‘I know what’s wrong,’ Merlin says, looking up at them all, ‘ _and_ I know how to fix it. Seems like a simple enough remedy.’

‘And the bad news?’ Lancelot says.

‘The vital ingredient is a plant called _salvia divinorum_ and Gaius doesn’t have any.’

‘Well we’ll go and pick some, then,’ Gwaine says. ‘Problem solved and I can be in the tavern by lunch.’

‘That’s what elevates it from quite bad news to _very_ bad news,’ Merlin says, eyes bright with apologies as he cocks his head and grimaces. ‘Only grows in one place – at this waterfall deep the Forest of Ascetir.’ Merlin kneels at the pillow, nestles Arthur’s head on his thigh and tilts his chin with a delicacy which makes jealousy trickle down Gwaine’s spine. ‘Can you hear me, Arthur? You’re not well – I need you to open your mouth – I’ve a tincture to help.’

‘I thought you said we were missing the vital ingred – ’

Merlin cuts Gwaine off with a warning glance, and Arthur murmurs himself more awake. He swats hazily at Merlin’s hands, his lips parting anyway, and Merlin pours a thin, silvery liquid into his mouth, stroking Arthur’s jaw until he swallows. 

‘There,’ Merlin murmurs, settling Arthur’s head on his pillow. His face washes with peaceful stillness and a slight smile. 

‘What did you give him if that’s not the remedy?’ Leon says.

‘Just something to make sure he’s comfortable,’ Merlin says, drawing a thin blanket up around him. ‘It should last long enough for me to get to the forest and back. I’ll leave more, though, just in case – it’s all ready. The stronger the colour the weaker the potion.’

He holds the clutch of bottles out to Leon.

‘Merlin,’ Leon says, ‘the Forest of Ascetir is dangerous. All manner of beasts live there, not to mention we’ve heard rumours about Morgana trying to build a foothold.’

‘That’s why I’m counting on someone very gallant offering to come with me.’

Merlin’s gaze falls on Gwaine, and he pinches his lips together, like he thinks there’s something for Gwaine to decide. 

‘I’m in. Of course I am,’ Gwaine says. ‘But – we’ll be gone days. We can’t very well leave the prince asleep in your room. Camelot’ll notice he’s not where he’s supposed to be, not to mention Gaius doesn’t need his glasses to tell you’ve Arthur in your bed.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’

Merlin dodges round them, tucks the book into his cupboard and pulls a shirt over the top of it. 

‘You have a plan, Merlin?’ Lancelot says.

‘Half a one. Or – well, a third of one.’

‘Great. That’s more than I usually set off with,’ Gwaine says, and Leon rolls his eyes and scratches at his forehead.

‘I’m going to regret asking this, but – let’s hear it?’

‘No-one saw us come in,’ Merlin says, lowering his voice. ‘As far as Camelot’s concerned, Arthur’s not back from his scouting mission yet. No reason we can’t keep that up for a few days. Gwaine and I will sneak out and Sir Leon, you could tell the court Arthur wanted to hunt on the way back, that Gwaine and I remained with him, while you and Lancelot returned to inform them of his change in plans.’ 

‘What about Arthur?’ Leon says. ‘We can’t leave him here and we can’t put him in his own chamber – ’

‘I’ll gladly offer use of mine,’ Lancelot says. ‘It’s quiet with little call for visitors, although I might need help to tend him. Alas I know my way around a sword far better than a damp cloth and forehead.’

‘Gwen,’ Merlin says. ‘She can be trusted, and Gwaine and I’ll be back as soon as we can. We’re talking a few days, that’s all.’ 

‘This fills me with deep unease,’ Leon says. ‘Surely Gaius – ’

‘Gaius would only tell you what I did,’ Merlin says. ‘If the ingredient’s not here, it’s not here, and Arthur – all he cares about is letting the people see they’re in safe hands with him.’ 

‘Not to mention being without a ruler would make Camelot look weak,’ Lancelot says. ‘I don’t think we can risk anyone but those Arthur trusts most knowing he’s unwell. If someone told Morgana Arthur wasn’t fit to defend the kingdom – ’

‘He’s right,’ Gwaine says. ‘And I for one don’t fancy trying to hold back an army while Arthur gets his beauty sleep.’

Leon sighs reluctance, but nods.

‘I’ll clear the way to Lancelot’s chamber,’ Leon says, and eyes Gwaine’s chainmail. ‘You should change into something less conspicuous. Do I have to tell you to be careful?’

‘No,’ Gwaine says, ‘but it’s nice to know you care.’

*

The ride out of Camelot passes in a clatter of hooves on cobble, no-one in the lower town even noticing as they pick their way around the market trying not to startle the chickens. The hubbub surrounding the citadel turns into the quiet huffing of the horses as meadows and wheat fields swish under their feet as they head for the east. The Forest of Ascetir reveals itself, the peaks and troughs of it, the lush, verdant swell of the trees only slightly dampened by mist, and they race into its mouth.

All too soon the sun dips, casting orange fingers into the sky. Gwaine pulls his horse back to a loose trot, and looks over to where Merlin – flushed with effort – is rubbing at a knot in his shoulder.

‘Sun’ll be setting soon, we should find cover, make camp for the night.’

Merlin nods. The trees around them sit too close together for a fire, and Gwaine tugs his horse’s head in the direction of a sparser area, Merlin following at his flank. In the quiet he realises Merlin’s said nothing since Camelot, his face in the dwindling light tight with preoccupied thoughts. Gwaine tries to discern them, watches as Merlin cranes his neck away from his fingers, digging pools of fabric above his collarbone, shifting in his saddle. Were Gwaine reading him as he would a stranger, he’d say there was something of the guilty man about him. 

‘You all right, Merlin? You’re usually more talkative.’

‘Forest’s dangerous. Keeping my wits about me.’

He makes a show of peering at the trees, but there’s nothing there but a not-especially-menacing squirrel, scampering up the bark with a nut.

‘Over there’ll do,’ Merlin says.

He points to a sheltered little nook blanketed by leaves, where the trees crowd in a circle around one which has fallen and been ravaged by moss and lichen. As they get closer, Gwaine recognises it – he made camp near here once before, after he’d been stung by a serket.

Gwaine slides from his horse’s back, patting her on the neck and loosening the saddle before looping the reins around a tree. She bumps his elbow with her nose and he grins and mutters a thank you, rubbing underneath her long fringe. She huffs appreciatively before dipping down to blow brown leaves into a little dance as she ferrets out the fresh grass beneath. At Gwaine’s side Merlin dismounts too, fumbling and distracted as he tries to attend to the task in his hands.

‘Here.’ Gwaine slips the still-warm leather out of Merlin’s fingers. ‘If memory serves there’s a stream not far – you go and see if I’m right. I’ll do this and make a fire.’ Merlin hesitates, his brow crinkled as he scans the undergrowth. ‘Holler if you need me. I’ll charge through the trees and do something dramatic and heroic, I promise.’

Merlin grabs the water pouch and goes, his gait unusually solemn as he steps over the tree lying like a dead warrior. Gwaine busies himself with the routine of making camp, so much more familiar, still, than his role in Camelot. 

Soon, a fire flares, the sappier twigs spitting and popping as the flames claw over them, and Gwaine rolls a couple of logs into place, ready for later. Behind him a twig snaps, heralding Merlin’s return, the leather bag he clutches swollen with water. Merlin pours some into his hand, offers his palm to both horses in turn, smiling a little as they lap at him and slobber on his sleeve. Them seen to, he rinses his fingers, wiping them dry on his trousers, comes over and sinks down with his saddle bag next to the fire. From it he produces bowls and a pan, gets it all going without a word.

‘Your third of a plan ran as far as dinner?’ Gwaine says, settling on a log, kicking up the sweet smell of rotten leaves as his heel digs in and breaks the ground. ‘I’m going to quest with you more often.’

Merlin hums by way of reply, and a few minutes later he offers Gwaine a dish of something reddish brown and lumpy. 

‘What is it?’

‘Bean stew. Well, stewed beans. They’ve been on the stove in the kitchens for about two weeks.’

‘At least we’ll know they’re cooked, then.’

Merlin pokes at his own serving, resting the bowl on his knee and looking at it like he’d rather lick the bottom of someone else’s boots. 

‘You know your plan’s solid,’ Gwaine says. ‘Leon’s too much of a goody-goody to arouse suspicion, and Lancelot would die before he let anyone harm Arthur. There’s no reason to worry.’

Merlin prods his beans, lines on his forehead deepening, and Gwaine echoes his frown and tries a mouthful of the stew. It’s pretty tasteless and the texture’s gritty, but he swallows anyway, shifting on his log when Merlin makes no attempt to fill the air with his usual easy chatter.

‘And yet you’re worrying anyway,’ he says. ‘What’s up?’ 

‘Nothing. Just thought we’d be closer than we are, that’s all.’

‘Ride too far in the dark, Merlin, you get lost. True in life as it is out here.’

Gwaine means it to be some kind of joke, but Merlin’s jaw tenses. He draws his knees up and focuses on them, running his thumbnail over the same spot again and again.

‘You know,’ Gwaine says, ‘I think there’s a thing people say about halving problems by sharing them.’

‘What if the cure doesn’t work?’ Merlin says. 

‘It will. And if you can’t make it, then Gaius – ’

‘I can’t tell Gaius.’

‘I know you think he’s working too hard but I don’t think he finds being bothered by you a bother. And it’s _Arthur_.’

The fire crackles, and Merlin stares into it for so long the forest falls partially dark before he speaks.

‘Did you ever disappoint somebody so often and so greatly you worried that one more and they’d – ’ 

‘You think Gaius is disappointed in you? So you can’t make some cure out of a dusty book, so what? You’re not a physician.’ Gwaine drops his beans and ducks down so Merlin has no choice but to look at him. ‘Gaius doesn’t expect more of you than who you are. He’s proud of you. Anyone can see it.’

‘Of course. I’m being stupid,’ Merlin says, forces a smile as he straightens to his feet. ‘I’m going to go and – get some more water before it gets too dark.’

Merlin’s back retreats through the twilit trees, head weighed down. Gwaine picks up his beans, thinking to leave him be with his thoughts, but the stew’s even more tasteless than before so he gets up and jogs after Merlin before he disappears into the gloaming.

‘Stream’s the other way, Merlin.’ 

Merlin halts, turns, swallows and scratches at his head, tries to fix a smile and say something funny. Both falter and fall off his mouth, and he crosses his arms, fitting his palms to his ribs.

‘What aren’t you telling me?’ Gwaine says, keeping his voice deliberately soft.

‘Lots of things, probably.’

‘What aren’t you telling me that you obviously need to tell someone?’

Merlin drops his chin, stares at the leaves beneath his feet, head shaking with internal conversation. 

‘I know what people think of me,’ Gwaine says. ‘They think I’m a useless drunkard and a dirty, no-good rogue – and I’m not denying I’m both those things, but when it comes to a friend – to you, I can – ’

‘It was me.’ 

Merlin looks up. His eyes burn with imploring and his fingers tighten on his sides until it looks like his knuckles might snap.

‘I don’t want to sound a fool, Merlin, but what was?’

‘The – ’ Merlin hesitates, glances at the canopy, pulling his lips into a line. ‘Arthur. I did it.’ 

‘Arthur’s been hexed, how can you possibly have? Unless – ’

_You have magic._

Gwaine’s heartbeat pounds in his ears, and he searches Merlin’s face for a denial, waiting for him to say, _that’s not what I meant,_ and explain. Merlin’s brow pulls down, like his eyes want somewhere to hide, and his throat works in little bobs as his mouth twists. And still the denial doesn’t come. The idea that Merlin might be a sorcerer prickles in the air, and Gwaine tries to squash it into a ball so he might be able to throw it away. Merlin wets his lips, unfolds his arms, and then doesn’t know what to do with them and arranges them back across his chest.

‘I was trying to help Arthur,’ Merlin says, quiet and hurried. ‘Ages ago I found this spell that’s supposed to make you feel lighter. He’s been so wound up lately I tried it – but it’s more dangerous than I remembered. Gaius is always telling me magic is a last resort, that I shouldn’t use it when I don’t have to, but I _never_ listen and – ’ 

‘What are we talking about, here?’ Gwaine says. ‘What kind of magic do you have? Can you just follow a spell in a book like a recipe and make it work, or could you kill me with a blink of your eye?’

Merlin swallows. It’s enough of an answer in itself, but Merlin gives a determined little huff and extends his hand. It trembles, but he holds his palm flat to the ground. Wind stirs up from beneath their feet, whips around them in a soft swirl, ruffling Gwaine’s hair, and when he looks Merlin’s eyes are shimmering gold. Gwaine’s breath catches because at once Merlin looks exactly as he always has and like something so far beyond the world. He sends the wind tripping a path through the leaves to an oak tree. It circles the trunk and comes back like a pet dog, waiting until Merlin quiets it with a gesture. The gold and the wind die away, and Merlin holds out his hand. Against his pale skin nestles an acorn, and Gwaine looks from him to it and laughs, breathy and startled. He takes it, grips the tiny cup of vivid green and shine between forefinger and thumb and stares at it stupidly, this symbol of Merlin taking off who Gwaine thought he was and putting on someone extraordinary. His heart clamours like the footfall of startled horses as he tries to grasp the mix of banality and the shimmer of anything but he saw in Merlin’s eyes. Gwaine’s toes dig into the ground, and a bit of him – somewhere around his bellybutton – wants to run for the trees and find himself his umpteenth new life. 

‘Say something?’

Merlin’s voice is shiver-thin, and even though the strength of his magic still thrums the air, something in his eyes says the wrong word would make him crumple to his knees and take an age to get up. Gwaine wants to stride into the picture in his head, wrap his arms around him and tuck him into the warmth and safety of his chest. It isn’t a thing for words, so Gwaine takes Merlin’s face in his hands. His eyes widen – grow even bigger as Gwaine plants a kiss – hard and noisy – on his mouth. Merlin rocks back on his heels, blinking, his lips slightly parted in an _oh_ that doesn’t quite form.

‘Is this it?’ Gwaine says, tossing the acorn into the air, catching it with a snap of his hand. ‘You accidentally put a spell on Arthur which made him sing? There’s nothing else?’ Merlin shakes his head. ‘That’s that halved, then. Shall we?’ 

He pockets the acorn and gestures to the camp, and Merlin hesitates with a little confused sniff before he lets Gwaine lead him back to the fire. Gwaine hands him his bowl, tugs him down – close – and in the glow of the flames Merlin smiles and starts to eat, slow and cautious at first – like his thoughts are getting in the way. 

‘You always had magic?’ Gwaine says, poking at his beans like he’s asking something light and small to pass the time, even though his head’s still reeling.

‘Yep. As a child I’d make things move across the floor just by thinking it – took me ages to understand why my mother didn’t want anyone to see.’ 

‘What she do? She keep you in a cupboard?’

‘Wanted to, probably – but that was mostly unrelated.’

‘You a trouble-maker, Merlin?’

‘I was led astray,’ he says.

‘Oh, I’ll bet you’d a talent for letting people think that.’ 

Merlin hums amusement, and Gwaine gives his boot an encouraging nudge with his toe.

‘Once, with my friend Will,’ Merlin says, ‘we were supposed to gather fruit, and he talked me into saving us the effort by doing it with magic. We spent the whole afternoon sitting in the branches drinking Mrs Miggins’ cider. By the time the sun set we were too drunk to do anything but fall out of the tree, and we carried far more fruit than any two people could have picked in a day back to the village at a stagger. My mother – she was so angry.’ Merlin shakes his head at his former self. ‘She made me make a promise not to use magic in the village again. I meant to keep it – tried to, but a couple of weeks later a man was tending to his thatch, making it good for winter. He lost his footing and I couldn’t do nothing. I tried to be subtle about it, but it turns out there’s no subtle way to move a haystack to break someone’s fall. After that my mother decided I couldn’t stay there any longer. She’d been telling me about Camelot and Gaius for years – think she always knew she’d have to send me away eventually.’

‘Arthur doesn’t know, I take it?’

‘He thinks I’m just a bumbling servant. It’s not really his fault. I let him think it because it’s useful. If he’s not really paying attention to me I can look after him without damaging his ego.’ Gwaine lifts an eyebrow in question. ‘We have a destiny thing, apparently. I’m to protect him so he can become the great king he’s supposed to.’

‘Always wondered why you show him such faith when he’s such an ungracious bastard about it,’ Gwaine says. ‘Always thought it a bit foolish, if I’m honest – but if it’s destiny’s fault? Well, makes you less culpable if you don’t actually like him, doesn’t it?’

Merlin laughs, hides it with his wrist, curling in on himself a little, and Gwaine eyes his shoulders and can’t help but think how slight they are for so many burdens.

‘Sorry I didn’t tell you before,’ Merlin says, bumping Gwaine’s arm with his elbow. ‘Wanted to but I can never seem to find the right moment.’ 

‘Maybe this was the right moment, you think of that?’

Gwaine bumps Merlin back, hard enough to make him mutter an amused oww, and look at him with a tilt, all sheepish and coy and pleased like his insides are blushing. It’s beguiling.

‘You’re not my first sorcerer, if you’re wondering,’ Gwaine says. ‘In the outlies of the land, where kings hold less sway, there are gatherings – druids and witches and hapless travellers like me following the whiff of ale and a good time – and there, lights dance of their own accord amongst the trees. Always seemed like everyone was laughing so much brighter because they knew they were free, when in other places they’d be lucky to have their lives.’

‘I can’t imagine – I’ve spent pretty much my whole life hiding,’ Merlin says. He smiles faintly, and brushes his knees off. ‘But I’m going to change things. Or try – with Arthur. Assuming he ever forgives me.’

‘There’s always blackmail – we’ll threaten to tell everyone he rhymes like an overly emotional drunk. That should do it.’

A little way off one of the horses snorts, and they both look over, smile with light conspiracy when their gazes catch. _Unpredictable_ , Gwaine thinks. _Didn’t you always know there was something about him?_

‘You got more stories of you on your hapless travels?’ Merlin says.

‘I’ve nothing but stories. Not all the magic folk I’ve met were laughter and pretty lights. Tavern I was in once – druid place, lots of fellas in cloaks talking in whispers and passing things under the table, suspiciously warty barmaids – you know the kind of place. Anyway, they served this vegetable thing on Sundays to ward off a hangover. Stank like it’d already been eaten by something with low standards but it did the job – get you through a working Monday with only a slightly bug-attracting side-effect the rest of the week.’

‘Why’d you try it? S’not like you ever had a job, is it?’

‘That’s just hurtful Merlin,’ Gwaine says, with a melodramatic clutch of his chest. ‘As it happens, I had a very pressing engagement on that particular Monday – vital need to get out of the place before my debts caught up with me. Impossible with a roaring beast behind the eyes, although honestly the week of itching sores I could have done without.’

Merlin smiles, reaches for a stick, and fiddles with a log that’s half in and half out of the fire, makes it spit in displeasure.

‘Or did I ever tell you about the time I was in the Pestilent Toad?’ Gwaine says, insides squashing around the thought that if he just keeps talking maybe Merlin will keep on smiling like that. ‘Nice place – only two walls, no roof, and a climate less than clement. I’m minding my own having a nice hand of quite damp cards, doing really well, as it happens – until my opponent pops her eye out, puts it in my drink, starts muttering all this stuff that makes no sense. At first I just thought it a waste of good ale – well I say good ale it was mediocre at best – watered down on account of the lack of roof. Turns out that was the least of my worries and she had me unconscious in ten seconds and robbed me half blind. Bad night all round, in the end.’

‘How much did you lose?’

‘Everything bar my boots. Bit offended she didn’t want them, to be honest, like she was saying she’d happily pull out her own eyeballs but my boots were too disgusting for her to touch.’

Merlin looks at him with amused scathing, and Gwaine tosses his bowl aside, stretching his leg out and wriggling his toes. 

‘Some people,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my boots.’

‘Nothing being thrown onto a fire wouldn’t fix,’ Merlin says, and Gwaine laughs. ‘Do you have anything other than tavern stories?’ 

‘I have a bunch that start, _this one time I was in a brawl with a fella with arms like hams_. I come out of those looking slightly better. Sometimes. Not always.’

‘Go on?’ Merlin says, stifling a yawn.

‘They can wait,’ Gwaine says. He leans over and tugs a blanket from his saddlebag, and hands it to Merlin. ‘You should get some rest.’

Reluctance plays around Merlin’s mouth, but he takes the blanket anyway. Gwaine tosses a log onto the fire, pokes at the ones in the centre beneath it with his sword, watching as they glow fierce red and make the ashy crust they’re sporting tumble off to join the sooty pile cosseting the flames. 

Merlin fits himself to the earth a little way away, pillowing his arm beneath his head. He’s quiet for a while, but doesn’t close his eyes, and eventually he says: 

‘You kissed me.’

‘Oh, you noticed that, did you? I’d’ve brought it up myself, but in amongst the magic and the destiny and everything it seemed a bit petty.’

‘It’s not.’

Gwaine rubs a rustle over the stubble on his chin, avoiding Merlin’s gaze because he doesn’t trust himself not to give too much away.

‘Get some rest, Merlin. I’ll keep watch, at least for an hour or so until I conk out and we both get murdered in our sleep.’

Merlin chuckles and closes his eyes, and as sleep drifts over him, Gwaine thinks a lot of things, but mostly, _I never expected to end up here_.

*

They spend the next day making their way through the forest under a low, grey, sky, working from a map fractured by creases.

‘The waterfall’s supposed to be to the east of the caves of Estodar,’ Merlin says, eying the fork in the path they’ve stopped at, then the parchment in his hands. ‘I thought we’d have seen those by now. Maybe we’ve gone too – ’

An arrow bisects the air and _twangs_ into a tree, and from Merlin’s side comes a cry which has both their horses almost rearing. They bolt for cover, the trees blurring into a line of green and black. Another arrow rents the air, accompanied by a shout, and a branch whips a sting onto Gwaine’s arm. Just ahead Merlin raises his elbow to try and shield his face, the trees too close to be moving this fast. They bottleneck up ahead, and Gwaine thinks, _it’s the perfect place to lay a trap – force a person’s hand at the fork, drive them blindly into something worse_. Ahead splodges of pink and brown pop up between the trunks; apparently he’s not the only one to have spotted the potential of the landscape. Something springs across the path – a rope – just at the right height to unseat an unsuspecting rider.

‘Merlin, look out!’

They both pull up in a skid of hooves and neighing, dirt and leaves flying up around them in a spray. To their sides steel flashes, accompanied by faces pudgy and triumphant as men dash through the undergrowth and surround them. Gwaine circles his horse on the pretence of steadying her, assessing. The guy who startled them hurtles full-pelt down the track at the centre of a mulch cloud, and one of the bandits waddles forward, leather waistcoat taut across his stomach as it protrudes like he’s with child. He draws a dagger out, tosses it loosely between his hands as his cronies crowd in behind him.

‘What’s your business?’ he says.

‘Just passing through,’ Gwaine says. 

He maps the fight in his head. There’s a few of them – they’re outnumbered maybe four to one – but their flab and posture says they’re just low rent criminals who lack any kind of training and probably get by mostly on number and forcing people where they want to attack. Doable. The fat one’s grin spreads as if he’s proud of his crooked, blackened teeth, and he points the dagger squarely at Gwaine’s chest.

‘There’s a toll for passin’ through.’

‘Is that right?’ Gwaine says. ‘What’s the price?’ 

‘Two gold coins. Each.’ 

Above them the clouds rumble, and the treetops start to vibrate with the pitter-patter of rain. Gwaine wonders – _if Merlin can stir the wind can he make the clouds open?_ – and he glances at him. Merlin sits impassive, one shoulder slightly dipped away from the filthy-faced men leering at him over their crossbows, expressions saying they enjoy the idea of him flinching away. Gwaine can feel the whole pack of them shifting, weighing both of them up, checking what they can see of their skin for scars and muscles that would speak to their level of ability in a fight. They’re orienting to Merlin as if he’s the one who can’t defend himself, and Gwaine sees a flicker of all the times he’s pulled a sword and pointed it at someone on Merlin’s behalf. Then he thought Merlin unwilling – rather than unable – to learn how to fight. Now curiosity picks at him, and he wonders what Merlin can really do.

Gwaine keeps the man’s gaze like he’s considering the tariff, silently and slowly working his boot free of the stirrup. Then he looks over, right into Merlin’s eyes, trying to hint at the thoughts in his head without giving away his game.

‘What d’you reckon? Pay and be on our way? Save ourselves the trouble?’

‘It’s _very_ steep,’ Merlin says. ‘See what we’ve got between us?’

His eyes dart to his left, indicating the two guys with crossbows and honey-dense expressions, and he gives an almost imperceptible little nod. _They’re mine_. Gwaine grins, looks back at the fat one, who’s rearranging the buckle of his belt beneath his paunch.

‘As my friend says, that’s a pretty penny,’ Gwaine says. ‘How about a kick in the face and we’ll call it even?’

The impact of Gwaine’s boot on the man’s nose makes a sickening damp crack, and he reels back groaning, clutching his face as blood spews onto his fingers. The stocky one next to him makes a grab for Gwaine’s leg, and Gwaine brings his fist down on the top of his head and makes his knees buckle, kicks him into the next guy making them both stagger back. He’s a little pleased with himself until an arrow ruffles his hair. He ducks, looks to Merlin, and with the slightest little flicker of yellow in his eyes, the two cronies holding the rope taut across the path are blown back onto their arses, and the archers get tangled in each other, arms and elbows suddenly caught in their bows.

‘What’re you – _idiot_ – ’

‘Gerrof, I never – ’

‘Gentleman, a pleasure, but we’ll be on our way,’ Gwaine says. 

With a heel in their horses’ ribs they make their escape. A hail of arrows and shouts chase them as they race through the dampening undergrowth, a verdant smell stirring up as they crush the forest beneath them. They don’t look back, laughing out a mix of jubilation and adrenaline as they gallop away.

Eventually they find stillness, the forest sinking back into deep, endless quiet, the only noise the soft sound of rain and the clamour of breath – theirs and the horses. They slow down to a steady trot, and Gwaine views Merlin through a tangle of darkened, wet hair. His ears drip and his skin pales with cold, but on his cheeks rests a splutter of colour and life. The clouds rumble again and Gwaine gestures to the sky.

‘Can you not shut that off?’ Merlin cocks his head in question. ‘I thought you might’ve made it rain – give us an advantage in the mud.’

‘Wasn’t me. You think they’ll keep chasing?’ he says, glancing back over his shoulder. 

‘Nah. They’ll have given us up as a bad job and be lying in wait for the next poor sap.’

‘I’ve no idea where we are now,’ Merlin says, lowers his voice anyway, casting a furtive glance at the trees, like they’re listening.

‘You got the map? I’ve been here plenty.’

Merlin digs it out and hands it to him, rain splattering the ink into runny little rivers of black across the yellowed paper. Gwaine holds it closer, quickly squints at the details, but the light dwindles with the end of the day and the storm, and the map wasn’t the most detailed to start with. He tucks it inside his jacket before it gets entirely ruined. The moss gives him their position – a little too far south – but overhead the wind quickens its race across the leaves and speaks of worse weather to come. 

‘We’re not far by my reckoning,’ he says, ‘but I doubt we’ll make it there by nightfall.’

‘Can we try? Then we can find the plant at first light.’

Gwaine nods. The forest favours them with another hour of decent enough light, and they stick to the heaviest cover to try and shield themselves from the weather and any more prying eyes. The landscape turns more rugged – mist stirring up to tickle at their feet, and in the bushes there’s the rustle of creatures hiding from the rain and startling as they pass. When the noise of rushing water reaches them, Merlin looks over and grins, even though his clothes are sodden and cling to his skin. 

‘That’s it,’ he says. ‘The waterfall.’

They press on – the noise of the falls getting louder and louder, the forest becoming near impassable. With a collar-full of rain each they agree to make the rest of the journey on foot in the morning. Shelter comes in the form of a rocky outcrop of black boulders and moss which form a shallow cave. Rain trickles over the stones – a tiny waterfall of their own – and as Merlin tends to the horses and rewards them both with rubs to their noses Gwaine collects what wood he can for a fire. He pushes his hair out of his eyes and crouches down next to the pit of charred earth someone else has left. Normally it’d be too wet to light, but in a fit of curiosity he makes a loose pile of sticks anyway but doesn’t get his flint. Merlin glances over, and Gwaine gestures to them with a _go on, then_. Merlin’s hand shakes with cold as he holds it out. A word purrs on his lips – some language Gwaine can’t understand – and then there’s the whoosh of fire and Merlin’s shy, pleased-with-himself smile. 

‘You’re handy to have around.’

‘When it goes Ok I am.’

Merlin sighs and settles next to the fire, pushing hair turned raven-black with rain off his forehead, transforming it from plastered to sticking up. Gwaine smiles, and tries to hide it, stares out at the rain-subdued forest, watches leaves bend with water and little rivers run a trail across dark bark.

‘Early start tomorrow,’ Gwaine says. ‘Be back in Camelot taking Arthur’s orders before you know it. More’s the pity.’

‘You prefer it out here?’

‘Rain suits me better than the chainmail, I fancy. You’ve the freedom to be your own man, out here. What’s not to prefer?’

‘Be nice to have a choice,’ Merlin says, hugging himself against the cold.

‘You’ve always a choice.’

‘Arthur needs me. S’weird. Sometimes he drives me insane but when he’s injured or sick, there’s nothing I want more than to hear him shout, _stop being such a girl, Merlin_.’

‘Be different if he knew the truth. Men like Arthur, they respect power, whatever kind it is.’

Merlin holds his hands by the flames, trying to warm the shakes out of them, flexing them and balling them again.

‘For all I know, he’ll always think I’m less than everyone,’ he says, words broken by the chatter of his teeth. ‘I didn’t learn magic – it’s not a skill I earned the right to use, like you or Lancelot and the things you do with your swords. Maybe he’ll always think it’s cheating.’

‘You care a lot about what he thinks.’

‘Not always.’

Gwaine laughs, pulls his shirt away from his chest. His skin bumps beneath and he tries to hold part of his sleeve closer to the fire.

‘I’d less wet if I fell in a lake.’

‘Tell me about it. Clothes’d dry faster if we – ’ Merlin stops. Gwaine catches his gaze and he swallows. ‘They’d dry quicker if we weren’t wearing them.’

‘You want to get me naked, Merlin, all you have to do is ask.’ Beneath lashes spiked with rain Merlin’s gaze turns maybe just a little intrigued by the suggestion. ‘Blanket’s fine. Saddlebag did its job. We’d be able to get warm, at least,’ Gwaine says. ‘Come on.’ 

Gwaine scrambles for a handful of the sticks he collected for the fire. He digs four into the ground, strips the bark off another and uses the thin strip of willowy sinew to bind the pairs into a rough pinnacle, lies another between them. He shucks out of his damp jacket and tugs off his shirt. A fresh gust barrelling its way underneath their rocky overhang startles his breath into a deep clutch in his lungs, and Gwaine tries to move quickly, stretching his shirt over the stick frame. 

‘No need to be bashful, Merlin.’

Merlin tuts at him and mutters an unconvincing, ‘M’not bashful, I’m freezing.’

Red with cold his fingers fumble as he tries to strip the bark from his own stick. Gwaine drops down beside him, making mud pools on his knees, and takes over. Merlin pulls off his coat, curls in on himself, drags the knot that usually nestles at the back of his neck round to his throat, staring down and trying to unpick it, his fingers slipping as he huffs frustration.

‘Here.’

Gwaine moves closer and takes over with that, too. Merlin laughs, quiet as he makes some apology. The rough knot feels sticky with rain – and under Gwaine’s elbows Merlin’s chest brushes as it rises and falls, maybe a little quicker than it ought. Gwaine tries not to look at the outline of him through the clinging material, but the slope of his shoulder and the dip of his waist – usually hidden – makes his fingers awkward too. He manages to get it undone on the third or fourth try, pulls the red material from Merlin’s neck. Merlin glances at him – quickly – smiles unconvincing ease as he reaches for the back of his shirt and pulls it over his head. He ducks down to arrange it over the frame in front of the fire, and Gwaine moves away, shakes the worst of the rain out of his hair, and reaches for the blanket. He wraps one end around his shoulders, trying not to be too obvious in his interest as Merlin kneels, fiddling with their things. He’s pale as the moon, but when he forgets to guard himself Gwaine sees strength and beauty, long arms and a smattering of hair he wants to nose through on his chest. Merlin rests back on his heels, rubbing his bumped-up flesh, teeth still chattering, and Gwaine nods at the spot next to him in invitation. Merlin scurries over and nestles in, tugging the other end of the blanket around him.

‘Better?’

‘Not yet.’

‘We got anything to eat? That’ll help.’

Merlin ferrets in his bag, and with a waft of wet, musty leather brings out a hunk of bread. He splits it – gives Gwaine the bigger piece, and Gwaine rolls his eyes and swaps them. They toast it on the fire, speared on the end of Gwaine’s sword, start to eat inside their strange little cocoon of rough wool and meagre shared heat.

‘You got any stories about the times you came here before? You know, before we met,’ Merlin says, feeding another bite of bread between his lips.

‘Couple, although it’s not my favourite place, truth be told.’ Merlin gives him an encouraging little nod to go on, and Gwaine smiles because there’s no way he could deny that face when it’s peeking out of his blanket and so very, very close. ‘I’ve been lucky most of my life,’ Gwaine says, ‘Never been _that_ close to death – except the first time I came here. I’d heard the whispers, _don’t go into the Forest of Ascetir alone unless you want to meet your fate_ – but I was arrogant and green – not long since left home. Stumbled into a snake’s nest – big things, long as my leg – and as I was making a very dignified retreat I ran right into this huge, black, armoured thing. Reared up – hissing, tail shaking – stung me. I only found out later it was a baby and I’d had a lucky escape.’

‘Serket?’

‘You made their acquaintance too?’

Merlin’s eyelids dip in a yes, and he pulls the blanket tighter, balling it in his hands, pulling them closer, the pressure of his arm welcome on Gwaine’s and echoed by the nudge of their knees. 

‘You do better with yours than I did with mine?’ Gwaine says.

‘Stung me in the back so probably not.’

‘Smarts a bit, doesn’t it?’ Merlin murmurs amusement, and Gwaine sighs. ‘I didn’t come back for years. Then forced myself to because the long way round had become peppered with places I _really_ wasn’t welcome.’

Merlin fiddles with the edge of the blanket, running his fingers over the stitching, following the pattern exactly. 

‘You never got tired of it?’ Merlin says. ‘Not having somewhere to return to?’

‘Nearly every day,’ Gwaine says. ‘Just couldn’t find anywhere prepared to have me.’

‘Camelot would have you,’ Merlin says, voice quiet as a breeze. He stares at his thumb as it peeks out of a hole in the blanket. ‘If you liked it enough to stay permanently.’

‘I like Camelot plenty,’ Gwaine says. ‘More than anywhere I’ve been in a very long time. Let’s just hope we get back there without encountering any more of our old adversaries, eh?’

They chat for a while, swapping tales as the heat of the fire tickles its way under their skin. Merlin keeps asking questions, eking the conversation out through his yawns, but eventually his eyelids droop in a way he can’t fight or hide. 

‘Sleep beckons,’ Gwaine says.

‘You want to take – ’ Merlin goes to peel away his half of the blanket. ‘It’s yours. Arthur’s got mine. I’ll – ’ 

‘Your clothes aren’t dry.’

‘They’re dri _er_.’

‘I don’t mind sharing.’

Gwaine shifts along his bedroll, pulling the blanket out from underneath them, arranging it over himself, leaving a space for Merlin to fill if he wants. Merlin hesitates, swallows, and follows, lying down next to him, breath turning stiff in his chest as they settle face to face. He holds himself tense, not-quite against Gwaine’s body, smiles, tight, as he whispers a thanks. He closes his eyes, somehow seeming more alert than before, his eyelids twitching with his thoughts. Beyond their isolated outcropping the rain splatters the ground releasing freshness and musky leaf mould in one, the falls becoming an angrier and angrier rush, cutting them off from the world. Cold radiates up from the ground, and Gwaine washes with awareness of how short the space between them is, how his heat and Merlin’s meets and becomes the same thing. The inside of his head turns wide and blank with the thought of it, but then he notices Merlin’s hand clutching a fistful of blanket, white with the effort of not sinking closer. 

‘Relax,’ Gwaine whispers, ‘it’s just me.’ 

He shifts a hand to Merlin’s hip, rubs a circle with his thumb, trying to soothe warmth into his bone. Merlin’s lips part, release a tiny breath, and Gwaine inches in until their stomachs brush. Merlin’s eyes pop open and Gwaine smiles an apology and goes to shift back – but Merlin softens, letting go of the blanket, and easing into his touch. _Gods_ , Gwaine thinks – and Merlin pushes against him, creating a warm prickle of connection. His eyes widen – curious or asking for some kind of permission – and Gwaine tilts his head just a fraction in invitation for Merlin to kiss him, if he’d like. Merlin doesn’t, but he does look down into the barely gap between them, his lips open around stilted breath as he takes in the places they’re touching, the pale tautness of himself and the sun-touched flesh squashed against him. 

Slowly – so slowly Gwaine’s patience is utterly gnawed by the time it finishes happening – Merlin places his hand on Gwaine chest. Chilled, still, it sits over his heart, and Gwaine wills it to be steady and quiet – not to startle Merlin away with too sudden a thump. Merlin watches him, his eyes limpid, traces Gwaine’s ribs, pads of his fingers skittering, tickling all the way down. They pause then slip back up, Merlin’s knuckles brushing over his stomach until he has space to flatten his palm again. Gwaine wants to say something flippant – _like what you feel there, Merlin?_ – but Merlin does it again, even softer, even more slowly, like he’s drawing and wants to get it right. Gwaine near-suffocates with wanting to kiss him, and they’re close enough for him to feel Merlin’s stiffening cock, but he thinks Merlin would take a kiss if he wanted one. Instead he shifts his hand to the heated little hollow at the base of Merlin’s spine, tucks them together until Merlin’s breath fogs a patch onto his nose. 

Merlin keeps drawing, lazy circle shifting to his back, and the quiet buzz of feeling makes Gwaine think he could slide into the ground through the tiniest crack. He burrows under Merlin’s head, finding a nook for his nose beneath Merlin’s ear. He kisses him right there – just once – small and undemanding, and he thinks Merlin smiles but he’s too close to tell. He indulges the thought of Merlin’s scent – all earthy and a bit like oranges – on his lips, breathes soft admonishment at his own foolishness into Merlin’s skin.

He’s not sure how long they lie in a tangle of breathing and drawing, but eventually Merlin’s fingers go hazy, and behind his eyelids Gwaine mingles with his dreams. At some point, his hair tickles Gwaine’s nose as he moves, but like their shared heat binds them, they just find another way to fit together, and sleep.

*

The falls are a tableau of angry spray over jet black rocks, rushing down and down and down into three separate crashes. Above, a hard knot of aged pine trees shoot up at the sky making a vaulted ceiling of sorts, and Gwaine imagines a legendary queen sitting regal on her watery throne, her dress in the flow as she presides over the forest.

Merlin hops between two boulders where a calmer pool sits in a natural gully of mossy stone, his arms out like he’s lost in an absurd and intricate dance. Gwaine grins and checks the boggy ground at his feet, but the plant they’re looking for is distinctive – large, bright green leaves, white flowers – and everything smiles up, thick and pale. He pokes at a clump of darker vegetation, ruffling it back and forth with his sword and breaking a spider-web still strewn with rain droplets. 

The storm thankfully passed in the night. He woke to find the rain quietened to drips from the trees, Merlin already up, facing the still-new day with his shoulders squared. The dawn illuminated a scar in the middle of his back – faint but raised – and Gwaine watched as he pulled on his shirt, the fabric swinging into place, making his skin disappear like something precious kept hidden behind a curtain. Maybe sensing him watching, Merlin turned, met his eye with a smile as he added his belt, scarf, and coat, waiting until Gwaine tugged his clothes on too before raising the matter of the plant, like something between them connected to the closeness of their skin wasn’t to be disturbed.

‘Found it! _Whoa_.’

Merlin wobbles, one foot slipping off the rock and splashing into the pool. He grimaces, righting himself and shaking his foot out. Gwaine chuckles, picks his way through the vegetation, joining him in a crouch where the plant sits, nestled between two rocks, splayed out like flattened hands.

‘Looks exactly like the picture,’ Merlin says.

He strokes the leaves – comforting them or assessing which one is the best, Gwaine can’t tell – before he plucks a small handful delicately, and tucks them into his bag. 

‘Is that enough?’

‘More than. Thought I’d get a couple to dry for Gaius and leave the rest to grow.’ 

They make their way through the trees to the tethered horses, Gwaine thinking of Camelot, of being surrounded by people and routine again. A faint sadness ebbs over him, and he’s not sure if it’s the thought of being swamped by duty like the queen tied to the falls, or because here it’s just him and Merlin, and in Camelot he’s everyone’s. They bend over the map, hair brushing and both of them pretending not to notice they’ve been standing closer to each other than’s their custom all morning. 

‘That’s where we got attacked,’ Gwaine says, tapping a rough approximation of the fork in the road. ‘We’ll need to give that whole area a wide berth but – last time I was here there was a serket nest on this spot.’ 

He taps again in the gap between them and the quickest route out of the forest, and Merlin looks up, nervous.

‘Is it too much to hope the serkets have moved on?’

‘Probably,’ Gwaine says, and folds the map back up. ‘Besides, wouldn’t be a proper quest, would it, without a little mortal terror?’ 

The day disappears as they ride. They fill the air with easy chatter until they both work out they’re nearing the caves of Estodar – the place where the bandits attacked them on one side, the serket nest on the other. Gwaine listens for the tell-tale scuttle or a call to arms, but the forest lies still, save for the sway of the breeze and the angry chirrup of a bird as they pass its home. The trees close in with the dark, the knots on their trunks turning into twisted, mocking faces, and they go on another half hour or so until Merlin startles as he connects with a branch and nearly falls off his horse.

They agree to make camp, and fall into their routine, and within a few minutes they have a fire blazing. Dappled orange by its light Merlin perches on a bench-like boulder and searches his saddlebag for food. There’s more bread – stale-hardened but at least there’s no mould to pick off – and they sit elbow to elbow and toast it again, like it’s the middle of the winter and they’re at home somewhere with a huge, welcoming hearth. Gwaine shifts his weight so more of his arm presses against Merlin’s. His arse slips into a puddle, but he doesn’t move away, the craving in his stomach undeniable: a blanket to hide inside; Merlin tucked into him just so, drawing patterns on his skin with his fingers.

Merlin scans the undergrowth and the deep blue air, and just where the horses are, mist starts to curl around the trees and roll along the forest floor. 

‘Foreboding,’ he says.

‘Is that a fancy name for fog?’

Merlin laughs and picks off some bread, eats it slowly. 

‘Thanks for coming,’ he says.

‘Better here than back in Camelot listening to Arthur sing his dreams.’

‘What do you think he dreams about?’ 

‘What does any man dream about? Things he’s done, things he regrets, things he hasn’t done he regrets not doing yet – pictures are different maybe, but all men dream the same, don’t they?’ 

‘Dunno. What’re yours like?’ Merlin says. Gwaine rubs his jaw and hides from his gaze behind his hair.

‘Most of the time I’m too drunk to dream.’

‘When you’re not?’

‘They’re about people, I guess. People who are important to me. What about you?’

‘Sometimes I dream I’m flying,’ Merlin says. ‘But not like a bird – it’s like I’m flying through everything – everything that’s ever been and everything that ever will be. I’m too far from it to see more than little bits and – it’s scary because I’m on my own, but somehow I know that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I should probably lay off the cheese.’

Merlin finishes his bread, brushes the crumbs off his legs. He leans closer to the fire, cupping his palm to his neck, long fingers digging in and massaging. He looks up at the sky.

‘At least the stars are pretty here,’ he murmurs.

They are, pushing their light defiantly through thin, greyed cloud. Gwaine looks for his favourites – glimpses them through the covering of leaves, the ones his mother told him were brothers sent into the sky eternally as a reward for their love of and belief in each other. He lets go of his sword and reaches for the bedroll, unfurls it on the driest spot of ground, close to the fire.

‘Tired?’ Merlin says, with a hint of surprise.

‘Just wanted a better view.’

Gwaine lies flat on his back, pats the space next to him. Merlin sniffs disbelief, but joins him anyway, steepling his knees and settling his hands neatly on his chest. His gaze flickers from constellation to constellation, and Gwaine wonders if when he dreams he’s amongst them, soaring.

‘When I was a child,’ Gwaine says, pointing up, ‘I used to talk to those two stars.’

‘They ever say anything back?’ Gwaine laughs, but Merlin turns his head to look at him with wide eyes. ‘I’m serious.’

‘No, then, they never said anything back.’

‘Shame,’ he says. ‘Did you not have any, you know, people to talk to?’

‘Only my mother, and she was away a lot, looking for work.’

‘Lonely.’

‘Not really. I had myself and my stars.’

‘What was it like where you grew up?’

Gwaine draws in a breath of fire-warmed night air with just a bite of chill still in it, and lets the memory form in his head: a house, squat with grey stone, like the weight of the roof was too much for the walls; the grass green – so very green – as it sprawled beneath it like the finest tapestry; the majestic jut of the cliffs in the distance; the salty rush of the wind on his face.

‘S’to the west. Rugged,’ he says, ‘so rugged I think a better description is probably _ragged_ – rocks like dagger blades and the sea always angry about something. The wind would race like a wall over the rocks and across the fields towards the house, batter it day and night sometimes. I used to stand on the edge of the cliff and lean right out and let the wind bear me up – and when my mother caught me she’d drag me away by the scruff of my neck, calling me a wretched, reckless creature. I loved it there.’

‘Why’d you leave?’

‘We were poor – wasn’t a good place to be poor. And I was looking for somewhere, somewhere I’d always feel like I did standing on the edge of that cliff.’

‘D’you find it?’

‘Took me years chasing, but eventually I figured it – it didn’t exist on any map.’

Merlin shifts his weight onto his elbow, turns towards him. The fire makes patterns on his face, caressing all the dips and curves of it with light. Gwaine’s fingers pulse with the urge to join in, to feel the warmth of the flames on his skin and his lips, and he almost dares until Merlin says: 

‘What were you really looking for?’

‘Me,’ Gwaine says, and tucks his hand behind his head.

His heart beats quick and deep with the truth of it. He hopes Merlin won’t ask whether or not he’s found, and Merlin just smiles to accompany the crackle of the fire. 

‘So you left home with no plan and nowhere to go?’

‘If you’re surprised, Merlin, you haven’t been paying attention.’

Merlin’s smile widens, and he crosses his ankles, mist just encroaching on the edge of the roll like it’s sniffing at his feet.

‘You don’t have some _thing_ you always wanted to do?’ Merlin says. ‘Even the stable hand who’s only got one eye has his dream of being a famous minstrel one day.’

‘Oh, the little fella? I’ve seen him on the lute at the Rising Sun. He’s not bad, as it happens. Knows some really filthy ballads – makes me think he plays up the one-eye thing to sneak into people’s beds. I admire his guile.’

‘Don’t dodge the question.’

Merlin pokes him in the ribs in an admonishing tickle, and Gwaine squirms, catches his fingers and settles them on his chest beneath his hand. Merlin’s fingers make a token protest but Gwaine holds tight while he thinks what to say. It’s not that others haven’t asked – his mother would go on and on about it, _what will you do with your life, Gwaine? The army would have you on account of just your father’s name. If not that will you find a trade, then?_ Every time she travelled to the nearest town she’d come back with a new future for him to try on: _blacksmith wants an apprentice, you know the baker’s daughter is nearly of age – marry her and you’re set for life. Folks always need to eat. He’d laughed: a baker? A blacksmith? Are you serious, mam? And married, already? My oats are too wild for that._ It wasn’t why he’d left, but it hadn’t made him want to stay any, either.

‘Poet, maybe,’ Gwaine says. ‘Wandering poet.’ 

‘I know you can wander. Didn’t know you wrote verse.’

‘There once was a young man called Merl – _ow_ ,’ he says, as Merlin digs into his chest. ‘What? I had an impressive rhyme and it’s not dirty unless you’ve a smutty mind.’ Merlin adopts a stern expression, and Gwaine chuckles. ‘What about you? You going to stay in Camelot forever at Arthur’s beck and call?’

Gwaine releases Merlin’s fingers, eyeing them as if in warning, and Merlin leaves them where they are, playing with the lacings of his shirt.

‘Probably. We have that destiny thing, remember?’

‘If you didn’t?’

‘I’ve thought about using my magic to heal – my father could do it. Be nice to help people.’

‘You do help people. You’re helping Arthur, aren’t you?’ 

‘It’s all so big and tangled with Arthur. And sometimes I do more damage than good.’ Merlin ducks his head, mouth tilting into a knot of self-rebuke. ‘I have this daydream,’ he says, absent-mindedly wrapping the lace around his finger, ‘that one day I’ll have fixed everything – there’ll be no sorcerer plotting against Camelot, nor army on the move, nor threat of any kind – and I won’t be needed.’

‘And what’ll you do with your slice of peace and quiet?’

‘Something really boring,’ Merlin says, ‘like move to one of the outlying villages and grow herbs and heal sick cats.’

Gwaine can’t help the laugh that burbles out of him, and Merlin laughs too, his chin dipping low with it until his chuckle tickles Gwaine’s temple. Their amusement dwindles, but Merlin’s smile stays. He slots their fingers together – curls them locked in place, and he doesn’t have to shift very far to nudge Gwaine’s lips with his in a tiny, delicate kiss. Gwaine thinks he’s made it more than clear he has no objections, but Merlin pulls back until they’re nose to nose, his eyes sparking at his own audacity.

‘You kissed me,’ Gwaine says.

‘Oh, you noticed.’

‘Amongst the cats and the daydreams it seemed remarkably not petty.’

Gwaine unhooks his free hand from behind his head, uses it to guide Merlin back to him, scuffing his hairline with his thumb as their mouths meet. Merlin sinks into the kiss with a little low murmur and a clench of his fingers, both making Gwaine open his mouth so fast and eager his jaw clicks. He tastes Merlin’s lip, and in reply Merlin’s tongue darts across his then retreats, and before he gets any ideas about stopping Gwaine chases it into his mouth, how long he’s wanted this warring with a desire to be careful not to frighten Merlin off. But now they’re actually kissing – properly, deep and slow and then fast and eager – Merlin’s not shy. He lets go of Gwaine’s hand, his fingers meandering first up and down his neck, drawing again with the maddening pads of his fingers, then inching under his shirt, fingernails just catching, making fiery sensation slip down Gwaine’s stomach. A nip to his lip and Gwaine thinks the world might flip and make them fall off. He clings to what’s at hand – the hair at Merlin’s nape, warm from the fire and exquisitely soft – wanting so much more of him, but Merlin draws back, nudges his nose and leaves Gwaine’s mouth hanging in a silent, expectant beg. 

Gwaine opens his eyes in protest. The mist has crept closer, threatens to cover them entirely, but even in the faint, hazed-out light Merlin’s eyes are starry bright, and Gwaine lifts his head for another kiss thinking _who needs to see further than that?_ Merlin – who apparently is more of a bastard than Gwaine ever gave him credit for – holds himself just out of reach, pinning Gwaine in place with an arm on his chest and a teasing, amused smile. Gwaine grumbles a plea, and Merlin grins and relents, mouth soft as he offers him a warm, open, kiss. Gwaine tugs his lip between his teeth in admonishment, and in the shared surge of lust which follows they scramble together, Merlin gathering his shirt up in rough handfuls, Gwaine hooking an arm around his waist and pulling him onto his chest. They kiss through a frantic breath as Merlin settles, gripping Gwaine’s hips with his knees, and before he’s even had time to get used to the wave of heat and arousal Merlin’s pushing his fingers into his hair, and abandoning his mouth to lick at his chin, tilting his head back to press his tongue to Gwaine’s staggering pulse.

Gwaine’s mouth floods with want – not helped at all by Merlin’s tongue, hot on his ear. He runs his hands down Merlin’s back, trying to tug up his shirt and his coat, longing to properly explore the parts of him he got acquainted with last night and test his theory about the fuzz on Merlin’s stomach being dense but soft, coarsening if he followed it down with his nose and his tongue. Merlin returns to his mouth with a soft grunt and an insistent press of his cock, and Gwaine’s patience shatters. He rolls them so Merlin’s on the ground, and before they’ve even really found room for all their knees Merlin hooks a foot over Gwaine’s leg and wriggles to bring their hips in line, searching out his mouth. As they fit together Merlin breathes out against his lips, fast and hot and giddying. Gwaine ducks to kiss his neck – and Merlin’s focus switches from him to beyond his shoulder. 

‘Wh – ’

Merlin’s eyes flash gold and he pushes at Gwaine’s chest. A squeal stirs the air and something ricochets off a tree in a sound displeasingly like a collision of bark and shell. The tell-tale scuttle of a serket rattles, and Gwaine springs up while Merlin scrambles to his feet. They both peer into the dark. 

Around them, glinting through curlicues of mist, are the shells of more than a dozen serkets – full-size – angry – their armoured, pointed tails poised to strike.

‘Oh, now I really hate them,’ Gwaine says, and reaches for his sword.

*

Gwaine backs against a tree, and makes a list in his head of the worst things about serkets:

1\. Serkets are bastards. They sting but it’s not a predatory thing. They don’t eat humans – or any of the other things they incapacitate – they just like to do it.

2\. Serkets are creepy. They anticipate each other’s moves and fall in line like a honed, singular entity with one brain and way, way, way too many legs.

He doesn’t have time to think of a third, because there’s a hiss at his elbow. He glances and then swings his sword, meeting the thing’s tail with a _thunk_ of steel on shell. The serket scampers back – the mist dispelling and congealing around its legs – but Gwaine knows he’s only bought himself a reprieve. He circles his sword, breathing hard, focusing on the weight of it in his palm, the way the metal fits warm and familiar against his skin. _They’re just serkets. Harmless little things. You slayed a wyvern. These? Tiny and inconsequential_. On his other side another serket rears up with a high-pitched squeal. Gwaine winces and drives his sword into the fleshiest-looking part of it, slicing in between the waving, black beads which pass for its eyes. 

The thing screams – legs flailing and tail thrashing – and Gwaine dodges but not far enough, leg scale grazing hard against his cheek. Another whoosh of movement tells him he’s also too close to a tail – he ducks behind the tree as it whips up – armed, ready and thrashing without purpose – and flattens to the bark, a bit of his brain going, _oh, well done. This is it. You and Merlin are going to die in a forest because you were randy_. The serket clicks its pincers in annoyance, tail swiping for him, and Gwaine edges round the tree, hoping he’s not about to collide with its friend. There’s a scuttle through the leaves just to his left, and Gwaine lifts his sword above his head and deflects a blow from a tail. As he does so something black like ink but much, much thicker which smells like tar and mould drips from the hilt and onto his face. _Serket blood smells disgusting, that’s number three_ , he thinks. Gwaine forces the thing back, skewers it between the eyes as it crunches against a pine. The life drains out of it, and it crumples to its many knees and slumps into the mist. 

Gwaine pulls his sword out with a _schlup_ , wipes at his face, scans what he can see of the serket line through the fog – a tail here, a glint of black armour there. Leaves rustle not far off and Gwaine plants his feet, lines his sword up with where he thinks the fleshy spot between its eyes will be, and uses the second of calm before it springs for him to scan for Merlin. They’d hastily agreed a plan – _I’ll hold their focus, you take out as many as you can and get the horses_ – and he strains at the dark to try and make sense of the shapes beyond. The mist swirls, tree branches clawing at it like crooked old women’s fingers, but he thinks he glimpses two pairs of serkets on their backs, legs dead and splayed like they’re trying to embrace the sky. There’s a rush of wind that’s not wind, a squeal, and another collision of shell on tree. Merlin’s apparently doing at least as well as him.

From the drabness a serket advances, and Gwaine looks it in the eyes. The cluster of tiny black things all move in different directions, and in his periphery sounds a pincer-click of anticipation. He’s surrounded. Gwaine sends a silent plea to Merlin to hurry up, and steps towards the closest creature, his sword in front of him. A flash of shiny black – Gwaine dodges inside it, strikes the thing’s leg – severs it at what he supposes is the elbow. It screeches and flinches, its tail shuddering, but it’s too close to strike him – the stinger thumping into the forest floor behind him and coming up with leaves impaled upon its point. The other serket scuttles back. Gwaine glances between them, knowing he has less than a second to decide which one to strike and if he gets it wrong, he’s dead. The injured one scrunches up its body to make the room to drive him through while the other darts in a feint. Gwaine guards himself with his sword, ducks into the safer zone of the injured one’s legs, digs his heel in and drives his sword between the thing’s eyes. It screeches and flails and bleeds blackness down – and Gwaine backs off, turns to face the other.

There’s no mist and no forest – his vision a blur of armoured serket tail, already striking. With a grunt of surprise and effort he leaps back – notices there’s a gash in the arm of his coat where he can’t usually see his shirt. _Strange_ , he thinks. _I don’t have a red one_. His heart turns to thunder behind his eyelids as the tingle of sliced nerves floods his awareness, followed by the burn of his own blood as it sucks his sleeve to his skin, his sword suddenly too heavy for him. Nauseous, he switches hands, parries another blow from the tail. The thing has multiplied into four versions of itself and he can’t tell which one he can hit. To his side another serket gives a preparatory shake of its stinger. Gwaine struggles through a step, swinging blindly – hitting something but he can’t tell whether it’s a tree or one of the creatures. He clutches his injured arm to his chest, and makes a swipe at a pincer as it waves – but there’s no strength in it, his body seizing around the wound. The venom sears up and up and up, tautening his neck until his ear presses against his shoulder, the pain so bright and deep he thinks the stars have fallen from the sky and pressed white-hot to his flesh. Eight serkets swim in front of him – beady eyes glinting and black blood oozing – and shit, he hopes they’re not all real because they’re close. He commands his knees not to bend, but the ground gets closer and closer as blood thumps behind his eyes. He sees a flash of something red – hopes it’s not more of his own blood – and his body begs to curl into a ball. Gwaine digs his sword into the dirt to prop himself up. Doesn’t work. He sinks to his traitorous knees, stares at the scattered leaves and counts them to stay awake. _One, two, thr_ –

*

Gwaine wakes to cold behind his shoulders, his arm throbbing to the beat of a high, thready pulse, his insides burning. Something damp presses to his forehead and he parts his eyelids just barely, trying to unstick them. Daylight and shapes flicker – none of them look like he imagines death would – and the damp thing goes away. A cupboard looms – pattern shifting but familiar – and he tries to make it stay still long enough to get his bearings. A face forms in front of it – huge eyes, dark hair, a smile that doesn’t quite trust itself yet.

‘You really do sleep like you’re dead. Had me almost worried.’

‘Merlin?’

‘Stay still.’

Gwaine ignores the insistent hand on his shoulder, and tries to sit up, fumbling for his sword to protect them. Abruptly he’s rewarded with a pain like being stabbed – actually worse than being stabbed – in his side. He clutches at it with the hand which isn’t an ache and a deadweight, stills the pain’s race, and thinks, _oh, bandages. Where’d they come from in the middle of the forest?_

‘Why does no-one ever listen to me?’ Merlin murmurs, and Gwaine carries on pulling himself more upright, a dull, deep throb contracting all of his other arm into a contorted, unnatural shape inside the sling he’s also apparently sporting.

Merlin guides Gwaine’s shoulder onto something soft, and Gwaine steadies himself and blinks at Merlin until he’s just Merlin and not Merlin in a wash of ghosts. Through sluggish thoughts he realises they’re not in the forest anymore. He’s in a bed, and beyond Merlin lies the door which leads to Gaius’s chamber. Gwaine searches his head for some hint of the recent past – but all he can remember is counting leaves. Merlin sets a cloth in a bowl of water and finds it a home on the small table, and Gwaine looks at his arm, at the angry red flower of blood on bandage which spans most of the gap between his elbow and his shoulder.

‘How did we get here?’ he says, voice hoarse. ‘What happened?’

‘You were stung,’ Merlin says. ‘Twice. I was cornered – thought I wouldn’t get to you in time.’ 

Gwaine scrunches his fist up inside the sling, and makes non-existent knives dig into his muscles. He glances at his stomach. The bandage there – stained crimson as it curves around him – is wrapped tight and careful.

‘You did this?’

‘That’s not all I did.’ Gwaine looks at him, questioning. ‘We were miles from Camelot – I didn’t know if you’d make it so I healed you. When I was stung, someone saved me with a very powerful spell and magic has a sort of memory. The bandages only need to hold you together long enough for the spell to do its work.’ 

Merlin’s eyes are fearful, like he’s expecting Gwaine to throw himself out of bed and rail _how dare you_ s about magic in return for his life. Gwaine smiles to let him know there’s nothing here but deep, deep gratitude, and looks at him, making sure Merlin’s not hurt. Tiredness rings his eyes – and Gwaine’s not sure he’s ever seen him stubbly before – but other than that he’s fine, apart from a slight scratch on his forehead. Gwaine reaches for the cloth anyway – wincing and biting back the sear of his ripped flesh. Merlin starts to say something until Gwaine dabs at his head.

‘You’ve a cut.’ 

Merlin stays still while Gwaine wipes a clear little patch in the grime and teases the dried blood away from his skin. Fresh red blossoms but only a little, and he inspects his handiwork and tosses the cloth back into the bowl with a _splash_ that makes Merlin smile. 

‘There were dozens of them, Merlin. Getting us out of there was quite some feat.’

‘I know,’ Merlin says, widening his eyes like he’s listening to an amazing campfire tale. ‘I was pretty impressive. Shame you were too busy being unconscious to actually be impressed.’

‘Story of your life, eh?’ Gwaine says, and Merlin mutters a laugh. ‘What about everything here? The leaves – ’

‘Are distilling as we speak.’

‘And Arthur?’

‘Plan worked. No-one knows. We just need to take Arthur the cure when it’s ready so Sir Leon can let the court know he’s back. It’ll be like nothing ever happened. Until then you should rest – you’ll be fine in a few hours.’

‘Nah,’ Gwaine says, reaching for his shirt, where it’s hanging on a hook by the bedstead. ‘Takes more than a couple of stings to keep me down.’

The movement makes pain spark behind his eyes and he winces. Merlin snorts and reaches for his shirt for him. 

‘That,’ he says, and leans in until they’re so close he can taste Merlin’s breath, ‘is why you need to take it easy.’

‘Does easy run as far as a drink?’

‘I’ll make you a tea.’

‘Put something painkilling in it?’

‘Gaius has an excellent potion – ’

‘Was thinking more a shot or two of brandy. Actually leave the tea, I’ll just have those.’ Merlin tuts, rolls his eyes. ‘You don’t have to say it. I’m a lousy patient, I know.’

Gwaine struggles his head through the neck hole of his shirt – manages the first arm fine – then gets caught, unable to move his slinged arm through the appropriate gap. Merlin huffs amusement before untying the sling, feeding his arm through with delicate, gentle fingers, mindful of the winces Gwaine tries his best to mask. He re-slings him over his shirt, shifting Gwaine’s arm into the perfect position carefully, fingers just loitering on the back of Gwaine’s neck as he ties it in place before slipping down to make sure it’s all present and correct. 

‘Those cats you’re going to look after one day,’ Gwaine says, ‘they’re very lucky cats.’

Merlin’s eyelashes lift and he smiles. With a tilt of his head he’s closer – and he kisses Gwaine’s cheek where it’s grazed – steadying himself with a palm on his hip to keep away from his more serious wounds. Gwaine thinks it’s supposed to be fleeting – a _get well and be good, you_ , peck – but Gwaine turns into it, seeks out his lips. Merlin responds – and it’s the other kind of aching from the one his insides are doing – but then Merlin’s gone with a soft sigh. 

‘You need to rest. I’ll – ’ 

Gwaine fidgets his hand free enough of the sling to fist Merlin’s shirt and bring him in again. 

‘What I need is for you to stay right there. Wouldn’t do not to say thank you.’

Merlin’s mouth moves through another smile, and Gwaine draws him into a deeper kiss, wrapping his good arm around Merlin’s neck, fingering his hair and his earlobe. It hurts like hell, but still Gwaine grins against his mouth, glad Merlin didn’t leave this behind in the woods.

*

Lancelot’s chamber sits right in the foot of the castle. Merlin flattens to the wall at Gwaine’s side, the bottle he spent most of the afternoon working on clutched to his chest. In it sloshes foul-smelling puce liquid, the result of much book-staring and lip-thumbing and murmurs of _I don’t know, I just don’t know_ , and a fairly minor explosion which left Merlin with soot on his face and Gwaine with one ear ringing. Gaius propelled them here, returning from the king’s quarters grave and grey around the eyes, lighting up with the words: _Merlin, you’re back! Everything went well with the scouting mission, I take it? Arthur will want to look in on Uther, I expect – fortunately he’s having one of his better days if you want to let him know. Before nightfall would be best – then I can give the king his sleeping tonic at the usual time. Routine keeps him calmest._

Merlin swallows – heavily – as a pair of guards pass the dusty nook they’re hiding in with a clunk-clunk-clunk of chainmail. Them gone, they nip down the corridor with soft tread, and rap on Lancelot’s door. 

‘It’s Merlin,’ Merlin says, to the wood.

The door takes a moment to open, revealing in increments a chamber not unlike Gwaine’s – save for this one being unnaturally tidy. The stone wall is broken, high up, by a window, through which the last of the daylight filters onto a smatter of utilitarian furniture – a wash stand, a table with a short bench, and a low, narrow bed which protrudes beneath a canopy bearing Camelot’s crest. On it, Arthur rests, his hands carelessly fallen on the blankets – Merlin’s and several others – his face pale almost to the point of blueness, like he’s dead. He hums, fills the air with a murmured, strained tune – and Gwen gets up from a stool at his side and nearly kicks over the bowl of water at her feet in her eagerness to jog over and pull Merlin into a hug.

‘We were beginning to think something had gone amiss,’ Lancelot says, glancing behind them down the corridor before closing the door with barely a noise. His eyes fall to Gwaine’s sling. ‘And we were not entirely wrong, I see.’

‘S’just a slight impalement,’ Gwaine says. 

‘You were able to find what was needed?’

Merlin extracts himself from Gwen and holds up the bottle. Lancelot ushers Merlin over to the bed, and Gwen scurries to Arthur’s side, her forehead and her hands knotted together.

‘He’s so pale,’ she says, ‘and his skin is like nothing I’ve ever touched. I did what I could but – ’ 

‘He’ll be fine,’ Merlin says, and leans over Arthur, tilting his head back on the pillow, opening his mouth with a gentle prise. ‘You need to take this, Arthur. Then you can wake up.’

Merlin pulls the stopper out with his teeth, and pours a few drops of the liquid into Arthur’s waiting mouth. His whole face draws back as a sweet, dirty smell like mouldy strawberries unfurls into the room, his arms swatting at Merlin’s chest as he tries to get away. Gwen’s hands fly to her mouth and Merlin frowns as he mutters at Arthur to keep still and Arthur doesn’t. Lancelot holds Arthur down, muttering apologies, and Merlin pinches Arthur’s nose and empties the bottle between his lips, holding his mouth closed until he swallows.

They stand back, Lancelot hovering between Gwen and the bed, looking a bit like he wants to sprint out of the door, and Merlin’s fingers beat out impatience on the crook of his own arm. After a tense moment Arthur splutters, then ratchets up into a sitting position, eyes flung open. He coughs like he’s eighty and hacking up the last of a bout of some horrible respiratory disease. His breath makes a cloud – lilac and so thin Gwaine’s not sure he didn’t imagine it – and he draws in a huge lungful of air, like a man almost drowned finally reaching the shore. His fingers claw the blankets as he wheezes – and Gwen hurriedly offers him the goblet of water that’s sitting on the bedside table. Arthur glugs at it, wipes at his chin, and then awareness falls across his still-pale face in increments of place and person. 

‘What _the hell_ – ’ Arthur’s gaze roams: soft on Gwen; wide on Lancelot; dismissive on Merlin; and finally confused on Gwaine. He rubs his hand over Merlin’s blanket and draws it up to his face like he expects to have caught a skin condition. ‘What am I doing in the knights’ quarters with Merlin’s bed things?’

‘You were under a spell, sire,’ Lancelot says. ‘We brought you here to ensure your safety while Merlin found a cure.’

‘A spell? What kind of – ’ 

‘We’re not sure. Gwaine and Merlin found you unconscious – ’

‘ _When_?’

‘You’ve been here five days – ’

‘ _Five_ days?’

‘You’re better now though,’ Gwaine says, ‘and it cost me the use of my arm – not to mention we’ve all told a bunch of lies to defend your precious dignity and your kingdom – so if you could just look on this as a nice long nap, that’d be grand.’

Arthur stares at him for a moment – questions playing in the creases of his forehead, and Gwaine adopts his best appeasing, attention-deflecting, nothing untoward-going-on-here smile. In the wake of it, Arthur’s face passes from questioning to baffled, and at his side Merlin shifts from one foot to the other.

‘Gaius asked me to tell you,’ Merlin says, ‘your father’s having a good day. He thought maybe a visit from you before his evening medicines would be welcome.’

‘Very well,’ Arthur says, and swings his feet off the bed, his face returned to its normal colour and expression of weary displeasure. ‘Would it kill you to wash your face and shave, Merlin?’

*

It’s late when Gwaine hears a tentative noise pretending to be a knock on his door. He heaves himself to his feet – jolt of pain in his side letting him know that healing spell or not, the wound’s still there and he shouldn’t move so quick or so bold. Habit makes him eye his sword and count the steps he’d need to reach it – and he shakes his head at himself, because he’s in the heart of the castle and there are guards everywhere, protecting the likes of him while he gets his good knight’s sleep. Laughable, that he’d end up here, when he’s usually the one sneaking about, risking getting his throat slit in return for an hour or two’s reprieve from the weather.

The door creaks as he opens it, and Merlin peeks around the frame. He has shaved – washed the past days off his face and changed his clothes, too, and he sways slightly – banging into the door when he misjudges the gap, clutching his head with a breathy, grimacy, laugh. With his other hand he holds out a stone flagon. Gwaine’s seen enough people stagger out of the Rising Sun clutching them – as likely to make it home with them intact as they would be to carry a well-greased pig and shove it through a tight hole – to be familiar with the contents.

‘S’athank you,’ Merlin says, very deliberately, ‘for the – thing.’

‘Are you pissed, Merlin?’

‘No. Well – all right, I might have stopped for an ale when I picked it up. Maybe s’stronger than I thought and I haven’t eaten since – yesterday, actually, now I think.’

‘Explains why you’re weaving like a bee. You’d better come in before someone arrests you for head-butting innocent doors.’

Gwaine beckons him in, and Merlin smiles his way past him.

‘Oh, were you – ’ Merlin stops at the table, points at the plate illuminated by a messy arrangement of candles. ‘ – didn’t mean to interrupt.’ 

‘You’re not. Help yourself.’

Gwaine tugs him down onto the bench, sits next to him, pulling the plate across the table and nudging bread and cheese in Merlin’s direction. Merlin hesitates – Gwaine persists – and Merlin caves and takes a chunk of cheese. He tears off the corner of the bread to go with it and shoves them both into his mouth. He chews for ages – swallows with difficulty – points to Gwaine’s goblet and lifts his eyebrows. Gwaine nods, watches as he drains it, unstoppers the flagon and tops it up. He takes a sip and offers it back to Merlin.

‘Better?’

Merlin nods, takes another hunk of bread, then a tomato when he realises Gwaine really doesn’t mind it. When he’s finished it all he straightens up, less glassy, and Gwaine thinks of his joke, _story of your life, eh?_ Maybe Merlin does spend his days being a hero but he always has to step back into his life as if he was never anywhere or anyone else. 

‘How’s the king?’ Gwaine says. ‘Gaius has looked more chipper than he did this afternoon.’

‘Barely recognised either of us. Arthur pretends he’s getting better – carries on asking his opinion about training and the watch – tells him everything about the grain situation and what’s happening at court, even though he never gets a reply that makes any sense. It’s like the only word Uther understands these days is _Morgana_. Then it’s like he snaps back but he thinks she’s still missing, that none of the last year happened. Arthur can’t bear to lie to him so – I do. I tell him Arthur’s doing everything he can and make up rumours – sightings – and Uther goes back to the window and waits for her. Physically he’s fading too. There’s no flesh on him – he won’t eat – Gaius’s keeping him alive with potions and who knows what.’

Merlin’s quiet for a moment, toys with a small collection of crumbs on the plate. Then he smiles and says:

‘You ditched the sling.’ 

‘Didn’t need it anymore,’ Gwaine says. 

He straightens his elbow – makes the wound tingle – wondering if that’s Merlin’s magic, knotting him back together, tiny piece by tiny piece. Merlin inches closer on the narrow bench, fingers poised at his cuff, lifts his eyes to Gwaine’s in a _can I see?_ Gwaine nods, and Merlin pushes up his sleeve, easing it away from and over the bandage. With slow, careful fingers he unknots and unravels it, lets the cloth fall onto the table. In the soft light of the candles he examines the red, shiny skin which sits where there should by rights be a gaping gash, while Gwaine examines the way shadows play on his face.

‘That’s amazing, Merlin,’ he says, maybe meaning _you are_.

Merlin touches – barely-there – running the pads of his fingers over the sensitive spot and its surroundings. Gwaine’s insides shrivel like paper on a fire.

‘How’s the other?’ 

Gwaine lifts his hem, muscles clenching in anticipation of Merlin touching him there, too. Merlin undoes his wrappings with the same care, lightly grazes over the patch of taut, too-pink skin.

‘Be good as new by morning,’ Merlin says, fingers shifting back to the table and curling round the ale when he’s satisfied with his assessment.

‘Don’t tell Arthur that,’ Gwaine says, letting his shirt fall down again. ‘Was hoping to get at least a week off training.’

‘I thought you enjoyed the chance to try and hit him?’

‘Not nearly as much as I enjoy the chance to succeed in hitting him,’ Gwaine says, but picturing Arthur attending his decaying father robs his words of their usual bile. ‘You seem like you’re feeling more sober.’

‘Much less tippable. Toppleable. Wait, are either of those real words?’

Gwaine laughs and ruffles his hair. Merlin ducks out from under him and grins, but it fades after the initial flurry of amusement and affection into something else. Merlin glances at his mouth, own lips parting. Evidently he didn’t come here to talk about the king or Arthur or Gwaine’s injuries, brought him watered-down ale as an excuse. Thinking maybe he just doesn’t know how to get from here to what he wants, Gwaine touches Merlin’s fingers, wondering if the thing which makes his eyes gold lives and spreads from there. He skirts the back of Merlin’s hand, over vein and bone, and Merlin lets the goblet go – offers his palm to the buttery light.

‘Tell me my future?’ 

Gwaine traces the thread-like valley which runs from underneath his littlest finger, touch tickling back onto his own skin and making his pulse jump.

‘Old woman told me once, if this line forks, you’ll die before your time. Yours doesn’t, so you’re going to grow very, very old. This one,’ he says, moving to furrow right across the middle of his hand, ‘will split the moment you fall in love – while the twists in this one mean you’ll always have more than your fair share of luck.’ 

He follows the line over the mound under Merlin’s thumb, slipping down to his wrist, wanting to run his tongue over the warm, fine skin, work his way up Merlin’s arm and then down his body until there’s nothing left to taste. Merlin’s breath quickens, and Gwaine dips his head and places a kiss – chaste but for the tiniest hint of a lick – over the flutter of his pulse.

‘That means – ’

Merlin claims his face with his hands, tugs him up. Surprised, Gwaine very nearly loses his balance – but Merlin digs his fingers into his hair and pulls him into a kiss. Empty-headed with the rush of it, he gropes for Merlin’s hip, bringing him in. His stomach flares with pain, echoes of it in his arm, but Merlin’s tongue slips past his teeth, seeks his, and lust obliterates his caring. Merlin tastes floury with bread and sour with ale, and Gwaine strokes up under his jacket, makes rucks of rough shirt as he explores. Merlin scrabbles for his thigh, using it to leverage a harder kiss, and the angle’s awkward but still it’s startling, having Merlin kiss him – want him – like this. Or maybe not, because isn’t Merlin always so very unpredictable?

Needing to breathe, Gwaine kisses his jaw and down, not getting far before he ends up with a mouthful of scarf. He fiddles with the knot at Merlin’s nape, and not able to loosen it fast enough he flurries kisses to Merlin’s mouth, too askew with arousal to focus. The knot gives, and Gwaine lets his lips slip down Merlin’s chin. He brushes them across the warm, snug skin he’s revealing, drops the scarf, can’t resist gliding his tongue up the muscle in Merlin’s neck to lift his velvety earlobe into his mouth. Merlin lets out a gratifying half-hitched gasp, fingers curling tight in Gwaine’s hair to keep him there. Gwaine sucks and nibbles until Merlin writhes away then closer like he can’t decide what he wants, and Merlin’s other hand clenches on his leg, slides up. He gives out a little huff at Gwaine’s very obvious erection, and swallows. Gwaine meets his eye with a, _what were you expecting, kissing me like that?_ Merlin chuckles, low and breathy, and glances at the corner, where pillows and sheets tangle with the shadows.

‘We could – ’ 

The words bring on a veritable palpitation.

‘You inviting yourself into my bed, Merlin?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t want me there,’ he says, grinning, biting his lip. ‘Unless you’re not up to it.’ 

His eyes shimmer with such flirtatious challenge Gwaine can’t think of a single reason why they’re not already both naked, coating each other in hot, sticky kisses. Slowly – just to prolong the delicious ache of teetering on the point between suggestion and reality – he gets to his feet, catching Merlin’s hands and drawing him in. 

‘If you break me you can always put me back together, right?’

Merlin sniggers into another kiss, this one slower, gentler, teasing. He guides Gwaine’s uninjured arm around his neck, and obligingly Gwaine fingers his hair, feels him shiver, everything more intense for being flush against each other. Rattled with it, Gwaine nips at his lip, soothes the spot with a flickering caress of tongue. In reply Merlin’s own fingers slip away to ferret under his shirt and draw up over his spine, making him hum. Gwaine frees him of his coat, toeing his own boots off as he eases them closer to the bed. Merlin murmurs approval, lifts the hem of Gwaine’s shirt, tugging it over his head, bringing him in and their mouths together as soon as he’s free. The material still between them prickles and Gwaine’s hand strays down to unpick Merlin’s belt. It slithers to the floor, and he bunches Merlin’s shirt up to brush through the hair that disappears below his lacings. Just like he thought, it’s fine at first, then dense, and he gives it a little tug. Merlin grins against his mouth, peels his shirt off, then shifts his stomach against Gwaine’s fingers, kiss turning sloppy and imprecise as Gwaine touches lower, finding him most of the way to hard beneath his trousers. Merlin’s fingers fall to join Gwaine’s, keep them there, working back and forth, strong and a good deal more sure than expected as Merlin shows him what he wants. Feeling a bit dizzy because it’s Merlin beneath his fingers, Merlin who apparently wants him too, Gwaine drops his forehead to the shelf of his shoulder. At first he just rests there thinking, _shit_ , and then he sucks at the crook of his neck, slowing the pace of his fingers and kissing up to his ear until the noises in Merlin’s throat turn needy and gruff.

They make a palaver of actually manoeuvring onto the bed – not wanting to look, they misjudge how close the mattress is and collide at the nose, soothing each other with laughter and kisses which alternate fleeting flickers of tongue with deep connection as they try to taste all of each other’s mouths at once. Merlin clambers into Gwaine’s lap, tucking his feet under his knees, radiating warmth right the way through him with a swipe of tongue under his jaw that’s unexpectedly effective in driving him mad.

‘Done this before, Merlin?’ 

‘ ‘Course,’ Merlin says quietly, but then he looks up, one eye glinting in a bemused sort of wink in the half-light of the candles. ‘Well, not exactly.’

‘And there was me thinking that’s the one question to which it’s not possible to give an ambiguous answer.’

‘Not in a bed, and never with anyone I know as well as I do you, if you must know,’ Merlin whispers, words barely more than vibration as they rumble from his lips but making sense of his mix of eagerness and hesitation nonetheless. His hands move down, possessive but careful on Gwaine’s chest, and Gwaine bends his knees to tilt him closer, toes curling up a bunch of scratchy blanket. ‘This all right? I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘S’fine. More than. Might even go so far as _nice_.’

He smoothes Merlin’s thighs, shifting his whole body into a rhythm like breathing, and Merlin’s mouth maps his shoulder, then his chest.

‘And you’re not drunk?’ Gwaine says, voice growing hoarser as Merlin’s damp lips tighten on his nipple and make him shiver all the way to his bones. ‘I don’t want to feel like a cad in the morning for taking advantage.’ 

‘Try, try and take advantage of me.’ 

The words coupled with a grind of cock to cock push an _oh_ out of Gwaine’s lungs. Merlin takes it as invitation to kiss him, wicked little flicks of his tongue making Gwaine work for a proper one, and he rocks their hips together until there’s nothing in the world as important as clinging to the feeling. Gwaine stretches to take Merlin’s earlobe between his teeth again, and a sharp tug in his side necessitates hiding an _ouch_ in Merlin’s hair. Merlin mumbles something about taking charge if he’ll only lie still, and it’s tempting, but Gwaine gathers him under the arse and rolls them over. He groans in pain, mostly – but not entirely – for effect as they land with a creak and a bounce, kisses his way down the soft dip of Merlin’s stomach, it trembling with laughter at his bravado. He noses the line of Merlin’s cock through his trousers, own stomach clenching tight as he twitches in response. He slips the fabric down, tastes what he reveals, licks all the way up his cock, and Merlin’s eyes flutter closed, throat working against a swallow. His whole body startles as Gwaine slides his mouth down over his hot, tight flesh, the noises he makes giddying. Gwaine does it again and again and again, uses every trick he knows – a tight twist of his lips around the tip, cradling his balls, a wet finger or two just under that. Merlin’s a sight, writhes under Gwaine’s mouth like he’s trying to get out of himself, and Gwaine thinks something about doing this forever because gods he loves the taste and weight of Merlin’s cock on his tongue.

After a particularly deft lick, though, Merlin gasps an oath and tugs him up, kissing him, open and messy, pushing at his trousers, inept with haste. Before Gwaine’s even really finished struggling out of them Merlin’s mouth falls down his body, murmuring and kissing and making sensation cascade from his lungs. He folds himself up on the bed to take him in his mouth, and Gwaine watches him, breath wild in his chest at the curve of his spine, the eagerness of his lips, the way his eyes flicker up to check what he likes, and especially the sight of his cock nudging the inside of Merlin’s cheek. He closes his eyes against the rushed swirl of lust until Merlin releases him, eases him back against the bed again, settling into his lap, grinning down before he leans in for a kiss, the taste of sweat and metal. 

They waste no time in making each other imprecise, cover each other in touches – Merlin’s fingers so very gentle, skidding over his skin in a hurried, tingling, daze. Gwaine takes his arse in his palms and fits their cocks together – tempted to ride it out like this – but then Merlin’s hips lift up and his arse is there – _right there_ – teasing his cock. Merlin shifts, groans, friction making it impossible to think. Gwaine reaches round, feels his way between his cheeks slowly, but Merlin’s apparently too impatient for slow, shifts against his fingers and says:

‘We need – ’

Gwaine ferrets under his mattress, and presents Merlin with a small bottle of oil.

‘Always keep the essentials close.’

‘It’s essential, is it?’

‘Of course. What if I met someone extraordinary and I couldn’t make love to them because I was ill-prepared? Be a tragedy.’

Merlin leans over him, digging his fingers into the pillow.

‘You going to _make love_ to me, Gwaine?’ he says, with deep amusement.

‘Unless there’s a term you’d prefer? I’m capable of the full range.’

Merlin murmurs something disparaging against his mouth, until Gwaine’s tongue makes him go quiet. The kind of quiet that’s all breath and concentrated focus on getting what his body wants. He extracts the oil from Gwaine’s grasp – spills some on Gwaine’s fingers. He kisses permission onto his palm, and Gwaine sits up – too quick and definitely too eager, earns himself a twinge of protest from his stomach. He muffles his groan in Merlin’s shoulder, but Merlin notices anyway, murmurs little nothings at his ear, soothing with a kiss. Such a tiny thing to make his heart race, but it does. Gwaine can’t keep from touching him, then. Merlin’s back arches as he presses a finger inside him, the drop of his chin exquisite. He takes it slow, smoothing his other palm up over Merlin’s thigh and higher, wrapping around his cock until Merlin pulses into his hand, half a beat ahead of the clench of his body. Gwaine’s breath quickens, ragged, and Merlin murmurs something about patience and virtue and damn them both, angles until he can get his own fingers inside his arse too. He exhales fast and sharp, his head forgetting how to stay up straight, dropping to rest on Gwaine’s shoulder. The slide of their fingers together into the heat of Merlin’s body – it’s perilously close to too much. Gwaine tries to say something clever about it, but it comes out as a soft, needy grunt.

Merlin steadies himself on Gwaine’s shoulders with warm, slick fingers, cock hot and leaving dampness on Gwaine’s stomach as he shifts in his lap. Merlin looks at him from only two noses apart, a flush high on his cheeks and his gaze so very wanting it brands. Gwaine coaxes his hips down, easing the head of his cock inside him, and Merlin’s weight does the rest until they’re sharing awed, gaspy kisses, like they’ve both forgotten how it feels. Gwaine grabs a handful of sheet and pillow, arm aching as he rests their weight on it, and Merlin moves – a gentle rise and fall, all soft control and steady purpose, only giving himself away in quiet noises, little flickers of eyelid, and swallows. Desperate to make his restraint shatter Gwaine bites at his neck. Merlin gasps, but it’s the yes kind, his eyes meeting Gwaine’s and burning like when he does magic but without the gold. Gwaine cups his other hand to the curve of Merlin’s hip, stomach protesting as he drives up into him a little harder, his whole body hot and tight around an itch in its centre, the kind he’s not sure whether he wants to scratch or leave alone to live there forever.

Merlin gathers Gwaine’s hair in his hand, tugging just enough to make his scalp flicker with hurt, his other hand flattening to Gwaine’s shoulder, then his back, then the base of his spine, pulling Gwaine up inside him. He moves frantic and harsh, and they offer each other kisses that fall off their lips, half-finished. Everything dissolves into snatches of _yes_ and _there_ and _shit, like that_ – and Gwaine’s imagined this hundreds of times but never got it quite right, because in amongst it all he manages a perfectly still thought about the lines on his hand, and if maybe one of them’s going to end up fractured in two.

*

Dawn creeps in with pink streaks, which Gwaine wakes to see when Merlin bumps his ribs with a stray elbow and then stiffens when the cold of the wall catches on his back. He burbles like a sad, frustrated kitten, his arms curled up, and it’s easy to blink away sleep when he’s there to look at. Gwaine scuffs his hip under the blanket, squeezing a good morning onto it, and Merlin’s eyes open and smile as they find his face in the thin light. It seems insane that yesterday there wasn’t this between them.

Something stirs in his stomach, rises up to his throat to sit lodged under his Adam’s apple. _Tell him. He wants to hear_. Gwaine pushes the voice back down, and Merlin inches in and kisses him – missing his mouth with drowsy imprecision, sneaking his lips to Gwaine’s from where they landed in a series of puffy nibbles as if he intended it all along. Gwaine lifts his chin so he can fit their mouths together properly, tongue playing on his lower lip even as his throat tightens. Merlin draws back, fingers his hair, and his lips part. Gwaine expects him to say something funny or sweet or tell him he has to go – but instead, the murmur he makes is whimsical and sad and poetic, words about the way he smiles. Gwaine blinks at him, and Merlin carries on, something different about his voice. Something _tuneful_.

Merlin clamps his hands over his mouth, like he’s trying to push what just happened back in and swallow it. Gwaine stares at his forehead. He’s had some strange, dim lit morning conversations – _yes, it was lovely, but I should tell you I’m actually a monk on leave – I would love to stay but alas I’ve a sick pet rodent to tend to – oh, this is your husband? No, he didn’t mention – might I say that is a lovely pitchfork_ – but singing? That’s new. And in the light of the last few days, not entirely good. Another burbled line escapes from between Merlin’s rigid fingers.

‘Are you – are you singing about your feelings, Merlin?’

Merlin keeps his hands clamped, shakes his head, his eyes wild with panic and warning.

‘Sure? Because it sounded – ’

Merlin’s fingers turn white with effort, and from behind them he emits a muffled:

‘Uff dun nuff. Codnufft helth ip.’

‘What?’

Merlin shakes his head – annoyed Gwaine didn’t get it – then lifts his hands away really quickly to let out:

‘I don’t know, I couldn’t help it.’

He seals his mouth back up, screws his eyes closed and presses tightly against his face. Half a line squashes out anyway, and Merlin’s forehead pinches into deep mortification. Gwaine laughs – just a short one – until Merlin kicks him in the shin and murmurs at him with an indignant series of head tilts to shut the hell up.

Gwaine masters himself – some kind of spell, no laughing matter, even if it makes Merlin adorably embarrassed. He goes to ask a logical and serious question – _did you put the spell on yourself, there?_ – decides that can wait and he should tease Merlin instead – _so tell me, in no fewer than four verses, what it is you like about my eyes?_ His amusement fades as his throat constricts, almost choking, something pushing its way up. Before he can stop it or say anything, his mouth bursts with a song. The first verse is out before he even thinks to try and resist it – the truth – everything he feels for Merlin rendered in song – but at least buried beneath some very dodgy metaphor it’ll take Merlin a while to dig through. Gwaine muffles the chorus with his fist – stuffing it between his teeth – forcing more and more of his knuckles into his mouth to try and make a stopper. It’s a partial success, but his throat protests – feels constrained like soon he won’t be able to breathe, even though his nose and his lungs are working. The voice inside his head coos, telling him he’ll feel better if he just lets it all out, like he’s had a night on the ale and it’s better to give in to the impulse to throw it all back up than to ride through a hangover. He looks at Merlin and splutters around his fingers:

‘Whot doo eee dooo?’ 

Merlin shrugs and squeaks something that Gwaine thinks is probably, _I don’t know_. Gwaine risks freeing his lips to get out the words:

‘Same as Arthur?’

Merlin shakes his head, and points between Gwaine’s eyes, then at himself in question. Gwaine shakes his head – because singing or not, he’s still Merlin – he hasn’t gone slack like Arthur did, hasn’t adopted the same blank expression. Like they’re thinking the same thing – maybe that comes later – Merlin’s expression darkens.

‘Cure?’ Gwaine says, and tightens his lips as the rest of the song pushes at the back of his teeth, like a shoulder straining to open a door. He fills his mouth with pillow – forcing it in and biting down – and Merlin lifts his hand again like a flash and says:

‘Make more. Get to Gaius’s.’

He looks pointedly at their clothes – cast-off on the floor – and grimaces, disappearing back behind his hand. The full weight of their predicament presses down on both of them at once: to get dressed, to do _anything_ , they’re going to need use of their hands. Gwaine sees a flash of a solution – he could slice the pillow in two – give them half each – tie it in place to muffle the worst of their declarations. He pictures Merlin barely able to see over the top of his as he tries to heat a potion. Not ideal. They both very nearly went up in flames when he had all his faculties to work with and wasn’t impeded by a mouthful of feathers.

Merlin tilts his head, achingly reluctant, but evidently having come to the same conclusion. 

‘Let it out, see what happens?’ he says – quick and garbled between his fingers. 

Gwaine tries to see an alternative. 

There isn’t one. He gives up, and nods, hoping that his dodgy metaphors will keep his secrets buried. They hold each other’s gaze: _one, two, three_. Merlin peels his fingers away from his lips, and Gwaine opens his mouth and releases the pillow. For a second – a beautiful, quiet second – nothing happens. And then they both start to sing – not what they were singing before – not individual tunes – but together, in a duet.

*

Gwaine closes the door behind them, glances down the corridor where all the other knights are still asleep – hopefully soundly and not dreaming about him and Merlin singing sweet somethings at each other. He gestures for them to get going, and Merlin falls into step beside him, one arm across his chest, the other hand tapping his lip.

‘How d’you feel, Merlin?’ 

‘Touch embarrassed. You?’

‘I meant – do you feel like you’re going to sing again?’

‘Oh.’ Merlin pinches his lip and considers it. He cocks his head and waits another moment to be sure. ‘No. Do you?’

‘Not at the minute.’

‘That’s strange. It was like Arthur couldn’t stop.’

‘We didn’t give him much chance, though, did we? Maybe if we’d let him finish before we knocked him out – ’

‘But we didn’t finish either – not the first ones we started. We just – you know, switched to something else.’

Gwaine murmurs agreement. _Something else_ would cover it, because he’s done some strange things in his time but nothing quite as strange as hearing his own thoughts mirrored in someone else’s and turned into a song they implicitly both understood. He knocks Merlin’s arm as footsteps encroach, echoing along the stone. 

A guard rounds the corner, large nose squashed in behind his helmet. He readies himself for a _who goes there_ in a rattle of chainmail until Gwaine steps forward.

‘Only me,’ he says. 

The guard tilts his head back to better look at him. 

‘Bit early for training, idnnit?’ he says.

‘I’m to see the court physician,’ Gwaine says. ‘Merlin here came to fetch me.’

The guard nods – and he’s about to go on his way when something stops him and he catches Gwaine’s arm in a surprisingly strong grasp. Gwaine rolls his eyes – _bloody guards and their dog-ish devotion to performing banal tasks with an inflated sense of the importance of duty_ – goes to fob him off. The guard’s eyes are blank like plates. His fingers tighten – dig into Gwaine’s arm – and, noticing, Merlin startles.

‘Hey, what – ’

‘Get your hand off me or lose your digits,’ Gwaine says. 

Most of their words get lost as the guard starts to croak out a song. His voice is low, raspy, like he’s rubbed it against a rough wall, and the lyrics are despairing, twist around in the air spilling loneliness and a craving for someone – someone to understand. The guard’s face turns to Gwaine, mouth stretched around the words and a mockery of a winning, imploring smile. Merlin looks at him, face contorted with disgust. Gwaine feels it prickle on the back of his neck too, the blind intent on the guard’s face so much more than disquieting.

‘Thanks but – I’m not your someone,’ Gwaine says. 

He tries to pull his arm away – but the guard’s grip doesn’t release. He grabs the man’s fingers with his other hand – tries to prise them off – but they’re fixed like they’ll break before they relinquish their hold. Merlin’s hands join his. He pulls and pulls and pulls – the guard still singing, wallowing in his melody, grinning, absent but fervent.

‘I – I can’t – ’ Merlin says. 

He loses his grip, his hands fly free, and he staggers back with the sudden release of effort. The guard moves closer – so close Gwaine can smell what he had for dinner on his thick breath. Merlin gulps – hesitates for just a fraction – then slaps the guard’s cheek, hard enough for the noise to echo down the corridor. It’s enough – the guard lets go, turns his face slowly to Merlin with an empty displeasure.

Merlin meets Gwaine’s eye askance.

‘Run?’ he says.

‘Run.’

They tug each other down the corridor – not even trying to be quiet. When they round the corner Merlin pulls him to the wall, breathing in quick snatches. 

‘S’he following us?’

‘Dunno. You want to look or should I?’ Gwaine says. 

‘You – definitely you – he likes you. I slapped him.’

Gwaine inches around the cold stone, tensed in expectation of the guard having followed and being right there – but he’s not. He’s crouched down where they left him, singing to a spider. Merlin peeks too, steadying himself on Gwaine’s arm.

‘This doesn’t make sense,’ he says. 

‘As opposed to us bursting into song, which is perfectly ordinary.’

Gwaine casts another glance at the guard, then pulls Merlin down the corridor. They come up abruptly when they hear another voice – deep and sonorous. They exchange glances, and Merlin leans in to the door they’ve just passed, and shakes his head. Gwaine takes a couple of steps and leans into the one opposite. He presses his ear to the rough wood, listening to the room.

‘This one.’

‘But that’s Lancelot’s chamber,’ Merlin says. Gwaine grimaces because yeah, it is. ‘Maybe he’s just happy to be awake?’

‘Yesterday he’d swapped expressions with a melancholy goat.’

Merlin double-takes at his words, but lets it go as he reaches for the door catch.

‘We should make sure he’s all right.’

‘How are we defining _all right_ , here?’

Merlin shrugs, and pushes the door just open enough to get his head into the gap. He snatches it out again almost immediately and slams the door, hanging on to it for dear life. It rattles – violently – and Merlin mouths horror.

‘He’s not happy just to be awake, is he?’ 

Merlin shakes his head and grits his teeth. Gwaine adds his hands to Merlin’s, fighting to keep the door closed. Around the corner the guard stirs – his chainmail nosily shifting and his feet shuffling, bringing him closer, closer, _closer_. 

‘I think you had it right before,’ Gwaine says. ‘Run.’

They release the door – pelt towards the stairs. Behind them Lancelot’s voice joins the guard’s – but not in a pleasing, harmonious duet like theirs was. It’s all discordant – like they’re fighting with their voices – parrying each other’s vocal blows – singing a duel about who’s the saddest bastard in the corridor. Gwaine and Merlin skid to a not-quite halt at the steps, and Gwaine casts a glance back. Lancelot and the guard both turn, stretch out their arms, fingers like claws, beckoning him and Merlin back. Shadows of the outline of people flicker across the top of the staircase – but they’ve no choice. Here, they’re trapped. Gwaine pulls Merlin behind him, meeting Merlin’s eye with a nod. They edge up, sticking to the wall. The shadows give way to two guards. As soon as they see him and Merlin their heads tilt, own tired souls disappearing from their eyes, something else swimming in and taking its place. Gwaine doesn’t wait – he thumps the first one on the jaw and knocks the second into the wall. 

They step around their slumped bodies and barrel out into the early morning. The courtyard hasn’t fully awoken yet – but the one-eyed stable hand is crossing from the lower servants’ quarters to the gate which leads to the stables. He spots them. His head tilts just the same way, his shoulders sink, and a bridle falls from his hands, forgotten. He starts to sing – voice reedy as it wraps itself around a ballad about dreaming of a better life, that it must exist, mustn’t it? His hands rise into an earnest plea, and Merlin grabs Gwaine’s sleeve and drags him the rest of the way across the cobbles to the relative safety of the opposite wall. 

Gaius’s waits just around the turn of the stairs, and they eye the way first before darting for it, both of them trying to get through the door at the same time, colliding and stumbling through in a tangle of feet and arms. They extract themselves from each other and fasten the door, Merlin placing a hand on the wood in relief. 

‘ _What_ is going on?’

They both turn, and Gaius sits up in his short bed near his work bench, his hair stuck down on one side and the sags of his face all arranged into accusation. 

‘There’s a – a – ’ Merlin looks to Gwaine to help him with a word.

‘Situation,’ Gwaine says. ‘Nothing to worry about. Go back to sleep. We’ll be quiet as mice.’

‘What kind of situation demands I be so rudely awoken?’ Gaius says, shoving his blankets away and getting up. His nightgown brushes the floor and he fumbles his feet into waiting slippers, glowers at them both as they do some kind of, _you tell him – no you – please?_ discussion with raises of their eyebrows. ‘Hurry up. I was up until the small hours with the king.’

They both see it happen in the instant before it does. Gaius’s face drains of its irritation. His head lolls to the side and his mouth mumbles out the first line of a weary song, his eyes robbed of all the him and the strange song-blankness in its place. On Arthur it was disconcerting. On the guards it was creepy and strange. On Gaius, it’s downright horrifying.

‘My room,’ Merlin says. ‘Get him in there and we can keep him – safe.’

‘What’re we supposed to do, herd him?’ 

Turns out that’s exactly what Merlin has in mind. He advances on Gaius, making soothing cooing noises and little hand-waves as if approaching an unbroken horse. Gaius edges back, his heels only retreating up the steps when he can’t get the range of motion with his arms he feels his song needs to accompany it. At the top, Gaius pauses, like someone on a hustings. He flings out his arms to the room – lets a note warble. They wait but he goes on and on and on, like it’ll never end or he’ll run out of breath and die before he finishes it.

‘Sorry, Gaius,’ Merlin says, and shoves him unceremoniously in the chest, pulling the door closed as Gaius staggers back and topples on his slippers. 

Merlin’s eyes flash gold, and beyond the door there’s a creak of springs rather than a crunch of old-man-meets-floor. Gwaine dips down – peeks through a tiny hole in the wall. Gaius lies, stricken on his back on Merlin’s bed – jolted a few feet over from its usual position – staring at the ceiling, his arms waving a dance. 

‘He’s – he’s fine,’ Gwaine says. ‘I think he’s conducting the instrumental part in his head.’

Merlin drops down the steps to the workbench, pulling up bottles, setting some aside, considering others with a squint.

‘We need to do something before the whole castle wakes up and finds people are randomly breaking into song,’ he says. ‘Assuming – assuming it’s not _everyone_?’

Gwaine tries to keep the panic off his face – fails, as the thought of the Great Hall, full of blank, singing faces, floods his consciousness – the guards – all of them – crooning together and moving with their arms out – the courtiers, voices high and shrill and piercing as they bleat about the perceived unfairness of their lives. 

‘You think it’s everyone,’ Merlin says.

‘We’ve seen, what, six people and they were all the same? Not the best odds. You’ll just make more of the cure, though, right, and it’s all fixed?’ 

‘Um – I need my book. Back in a minute.’

Merlin darts up the stairs, squeezes through the door, and disappears. Gwaine goes over to the bench – but before he has chance to do anything Merlin returns, a large, brown volume clutched to his chest. He opens the book and thumbs the pages, writing and pictures blurring into one. Merlin finds what he’s looking for, scans the text, flips a page, running his fingers along the words like he can feel them. Then he stops, dips closer, and re-reads the same thing over and over and over.

‘What? What is it?’

Merlin straightens up, face tense like when they saw Arthur at the lake. Gwaine drags the book over and reads: 

‘ _In addition to the aforementioned pleasing lightness of being and release from burdensome worries, note that once a song begins to spin not rhyme nor reason will make it cease. The afflicted will descend to madness or death, little caring for his self, only serving the song as it gives word to the deepest longings of his heart_. What’s that mean? People’ll sing themselves to death?’

‘Yes – I knew that – not when I cast it because it’s over the stupid page from the actual spell, but – when we came back with Arthur I realised. But this bit about the cure,’ Merlin says, reading, ‘ _a potion made of salvia divinorum, feverfew_ – and a load of plants you won’t have heard of – _may be administered to dispel the effect_. It’s the cure – _dispel_ – I thought that was just old book-speak for breaking the spell, but maybe it’s – ’

‘Literal?’ Gwaine says. Merlin nods. ‘When you gave Arthur the potion I saw something like smoke coming out of his mouth. Lilac smoke. It was there and then gone – I thought I’d imagined it.’ 

Merlin clutches his forehead, grabbing fingerfulls of his hair, his mouth open. 

‘I didn’t cure it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t break the spell I just – dispersed it. Through the whole castle. The whole of Camelot is going to sing itself to madness or death.’

Beyond his bedroom door, Gaius starts up again, working his way down a scale. Merlin flinches, and Gwaine steps into him, touches his arm and gently pulls his hand away from his head.

‘Don’t. If the cure worked on Arthur – ’

‘Did it, though? For all we know he’s up in his room singing about Gwen again – and besides, even if it did work, I can’t give the same thing to everyone. I didn’t bring back enough leaves – and even if we go and get more, the potion just makes things worse.’

Gwaine swallows. There’s nothing he likes less than a dead end. Merlin rolls his eyes and sinks down on the bench, thunking his head into his hands. Beyond the door Gaius wails about past regrets and Merlin screws his eyes up. 

‘You know my philosophy,’ Gwaine says, ‘don’t worry about things until it’s unavoidable. My suggestion? We go and see if Arthur’s singing his little heart out or if your potion works – and then we’ll panic about the rest.’

Merlin looks up from underneath impressively disarrayed hair, but when Gaius hits a high note he nods and pulls himself to his feet.

*

‘Morning, sire.’

Merlin grins at Arthur like he hasn’t just ripped off his bedclothes too quickly and rattled him awake long before he’s accustomed to. Arthur’s face emerges with bearish disgruntlement from his pillow and he squints sleepily at the day and then grimaces at Gwaine.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘There’s a – are we calling it a situation?’ Gwaine says, looking to Merlin. 

‘Yeah.’

‘There’s a situation, then. We just need to ask how you’re feeling.’

‘How I’m _feeling_?’

Arthur sits up, the word pulling his face into a number of would-in-any-other-circumstance-be-amusing shapes before finally resting on _baffled_ and _annoyed_.

‘Just – in yourself,’ Merlin says, and goes over to the cupboard to retrieve Arthur’s clothes from where they’re dangling over the door with a faux-chipper bounce in his step. 

‘ _Why_?’

‘Well, you were under a spell. Standard to – follow up.’ Arthur gets out of bed and rounds on Merlin as he tugs the shirt down. ‘All right,’ Merlin says. ‘Just tell me – do you feel like you’re going to choke if you don’t sing?’

‘I feel like I’m going to choke you but that’s nothing unusual for a Thursday.’

Arthur grabs his shirt and pulls it over his head, and in a fit of impatience Gwaine strides over, takes his chin, and peers right into his eyes. They blink – flicker with confusion and indignation at his impertinence – but they’re still Arthur’s.

‘What are you – ’

‘He’s fine,’ Gwaine says. ‘I mean he’s still Arthur. The two may not in fact be the same thing.’

‘Someone tell me what the hell is going on,’ Arthur says, as he wrenches his chin free, and drops his hands to his hips with an irritated huff.

Merlin hides his hands in his armpits.

‘It’s the spell you were under,’ he says. ‘It kind of – got loose and it’s infected other people. The remedy I gave you – freed it.’

‘You’re telling me that all over the castle, people are unconscious?’ Arthur says.

‘I wish,’ Merlin mutters, and Arthur glares at him. ‘You being unconscious wasn’t part of the spell – Gwaine did that the old fashioned way to buy us time to find a cure. The people who are affected they’re – singing.’

‘Well that sounds terrifying. Quick, get my armour and round up the knights so we can fight off this _evil choir_.’

‘You don’t understand. They’re not _singing_ singing – they’re pouring their souls into song. They give up everything but the words and the tune. Untreated, people sing themselves to madness or death – or probably madness and _then_ death, actually.’

Arthur’s shoulders straighten with immediate sobriety, any trace of amusement gone. His mouth works around the idea, pulls his face into a deep, deep, frown. 

‘ _I_ was singing? About my soul? What did I – ’

‘About Gwen, I think,’ Merlin says, avoiding Arthur’s eyes.

‘That’s why we knocked you out. Didn’t think it was our place to listen,’ Gwaine says. 

‘So let me get this straight. I was under a spell which made me sing – you knocked me out, then cured me, but the cure’s not really a cure and now the spell is making its way through the castle and everyone’s singing about their soul?’ 

‘Pretty much.’

‘What does Gaius have to say?’ 

‘Very little, unless you’re interested in a song about the good old days.’

‘Killing the sorcerer usually proves effective,’ Arthur says. ‘We need to find out – ’

‘Not an option,’ Gwaine says, and Merlin looks at him with a quick note of warning. ‘We don’t know who it is.’

Arthur rakes his hands through his hair, paces back and forth a few times across the stone, then goes over to the window. At first he’s just using the landscape as a foil to his thinking, but then he peers at something and reaches for the latch. As the window swings open, noise burbles up – the usual early-morning buzz of the courtyard turned into the harsh chattering of a huge, angry bird’s nest. Closer, a tune curls up from an open window below – the voice familiar – a woman – _Gwen_. They listen for a moment as she sings about a man, the desire of her heart and how they’re apart – and Arthur snaps the window shut and fingers the glass. His forehead creases and he looks from Gwaine to Merlin and back again.

‘If Gwen’s affected – ’

‘And Lancelot,’ Merlin says. ‘We saw him earlier.’

‘ – then why aren’t you two?’

‘We were,’ Gwaine says. ‘Just – differently. We sang, but we were able to stop and now it feels like it’s gone.’

‘So there is a cure – another one?’ Arthur says. ‘What did you do that everyone else didn’t?’

‘We – ate the same cheese?’ Merlin offers, blushing slightly as he briefly meets Gwaine’s eye in a conspiratorial, _we’re not telling him what else we did last night, right? Because it’s not that_. ‘Or we – we had ale?’

Arthur fingers his eyebrow and murmurs a prayer.

‘I need a full report,’ he says. ‘Meet me back here as quickly as you can, and tell me how many people have caught this spell. Gather any of the other knights or the guard who aren’t affected – I’ll check on my father personally.’

Arthur sweeps out, and Merlin fists his hands in his hair.

‘I don’t even want to go and look at the lower town,’ he says. ‘This is hopeless.’

‘It’s not. Like Arthur said, we just need to figure out what we did and then make everyone do the same. Maybe it was the ale. And if we can’t pin it down we’ll make a big batch of the cure, put it in the water, catch everyone’s breath in a – jar.’ Merlin looks at him like he’s talking the nonsense of someone recently hit on the head. ‘All right, not that. But there must be something else we can do? The spell you did – it can’t just exist with no counter?’

‘You don’t get it, Gwaine,’ Merlin says, slumps onto the bed post. ‘Spells – magic – they don’t play fair.’

‘There’s always _something_ , Merlin. I’ve been in direr straits than this. Once – ’

‘I don’t think this is really the time for one of your stories.’ Gwaine frowns, and Merlin’s eyelashes dip in apology. ‘I just meant – I’ve lead the whole of Camelot into madness or death. I don’t need – ’

‘The likes of me trying to make you feel better. Why would you? S’fine.’ 

In Gwaine’s chest it’s not fine. It stings – worse than the serket – but he fixes a smile in place and glances at the door. 

‘Well – maybe I’ll leave you and Arthur to it. I’m sure there’s something I could be doing or drinking.’

*

The tavern is a bad idea. Gwaine figures that out somewhere between catching sight of Leon, Elyan, and Percival strewn around the bar singing to a bemused barmaid, a sword, and their own reflection respectively, and the landlord – shirtless and blubbery of forearm – dragging him out by the throat while shouting:

‘No, no more of you knights and your feckin’ singin’. My poor eardrums have had enough. What’s Camelot coming to, eh? Supposed to be defenders of the people, not a frigging dance troupe. Uther – gods rest his not-yet-departed soul, ee wouldn’t’ve stood for this.’

Gwaine lands on his arse in the street. A passing chicken looks at him dismissively and clucks a laugh, and the landlord dusts off his palms and goes back inside. A moment – and a considerable scuffle – later, Leon topples out of the door and lands flat on his back, hands thwacking the ground and stirring up a cloud. Elyan staggers out, trips over Leon’s ankle, and lands on top of him with an awkward but beautifully in-tune _whoa_. Percival follows, the landlord herding him with an upturned stool. He stands – distraught – next to a wicker cage full of chickens and starts singing about the horrible unfairness of being judged for his appearance while the landlord goes back inside muttering and locks the door.

Gwaine gets to his feet. He pulls Leon and Elyan up too, but once upright they ignore him and gravitate to Percival, form into a little cluster, shoulder to shoulder. Percival hums a note – the other two join in, Elyan in a high almost falsetto, Leon with a low baritone – and together, in quite impressive harmony, they start to sing. The song sounds different to the ones they were singing in the tavern when they were spread about. They stare into each other’s eyes – and honestly it’s a bit personal, but Gwaine waits and eventually they all croon to a final sustained high and then finish in pleasing synchronicity.

Leon blinks rapidly, glances at the tavern, scratches at his head – releasing little puffs of dust and dirt – and eyes the other two cautiously.

‘What on earth did we drink?’ he says. ‘ _One_ , I said. One to round off a hard day.’

‘Long story abridged, it’s a spell,’ Gwaine says, brain clutching at _maybe it_ is _the ale_. ‘Can I ask – what did you drink?’

‘Mead,’ Elyan says.

‘Ale,’ Leon says.

‘Wine.’

Not the ale, then. _Shit_. Gwaine clears his throat, and shifts his weight.

‘So did any of you – how do I say this without losing any teeth? Just curious and be assured in advance of my discretion – did any of you get – romantic last night? With each other?’ Leon’s eyebrows leap up, shocked. ‘Or not _romantic_ necessarily but – naked and _entwined_?’ They look at him, Elyan cautious as if he thinks he knows what Gwaine’s trying to say but assumes he’s got it wrong, Percival baffled, Leon annoyed. ‘Look, just tell me – did all of you happen to shag?’

‘What? No.’

Leon coughs something that sounds like _never drinking again_ , and _back to the castle, supposed to be on duty_. As they go he brushes the dirt out of his hair and draws himself up in an effort to look respectable. Gwaine elects not to tell him he’s got a feather in his fringe, going through the evening, trying to see what else he and Merlin did that Elyan, Leon, and Percival might have also. They’re halfway across the courtyard when Percival clasps Leon’s shoulder and says something about being enchanted at least being more bearable with friends, and Gwaine has a flicker of an idea he can’t quite catch.

*

It takes an age to get through the castle, place crawling with cooks who’ve drifted free of the kitchen and are engaged in vocal duels about puddings, stable hands singing wistfully to horses, and guards moaning tunelessly about various protocol infringements instead of watching the walls. Leon frets and tries to get them back to their posts until one of them grabs his cloak and pulls them face to face, singing about his lustrous hair and nearly strangling him in the process. Then, he decides they need to hasten to Arthur in the hope he’s had some kind of epiphany, like years of tactical training equip a man for this.

They knock on the unguarded door, and Arthur beckons them into the chamber. Beyond the windows the castle sings, low and jarring, the noise grating, even up here.

‘This is it?’ Arthur says, voice raised to be heard. ‘Everyone else is affected?’

‘Seems that way.’

‘Right, well – ’ Arthur spreads a map on the table. ‘Our priority is to defend the castle. Seal all the entrances except the side gate, force all-comers to there. Sir Leon, see that the gate is manned at all times. Be mindful that this might be part of a larger plot and raise the alarm if needed. The rest of us will – ’ Arthur glances at the door as it opens, and Merlin edges in. ‘Nice of you to join us. What news of the lower town?’

‘No reports of anything unusual concerning the people who actually live there. The only people affected work within the castle and were on duty yesterday.’

‘Sire, we can confirm that,’ Leon says, ‘we were in the tavern last night when we – displayed symptoms, but none of the townsfolk shared our affliction. They seemed to find us a strange amusement. I fear the reputation of the knights of Camelot has been somewhat tainted.’

They go back to talking tactics – how to contain people to their rooms or at least keep them apart to bring the noise down. Merlin sidles to where Gwaine’s standing, leans in on the pretence he’s checking some detail on the map, and lightly touches his elbow. Gwaine looks at him, and Merlin tilts his head and mouths, _sorry I snapped at you_. Gwaine smiles, _it’s forgotten. Of course it is_.

‘I think I know how to break the spell,’ Merlin whispers. ‘It’s all about finding a person to sing _with_ to get the tune out of you.’ Merlin casts a glance at Arthur, but he’s still bent over the parchment, tapping to indicate the best positions to hold people, the others crowded around him and nodding. ‘Geoffrey fell asleep in the library last night – I was in there looking for a book and I saw him reunited with his wife. They’re surprisingly good singers and very much in love – came out of it like we did.’ 

‘Leon, Elyan, and Percival – singing to each other cured them too.’

‘What, they’re all together?’

‘No, but the knights are the most important thing in Leon’s life. Percival’s too – and I guess Elyan maybe feels the same?’ 

‘That would explain – ’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ Arthur says, ‘was I boring you both with my plan to contain a vicious disease and save Camelot? Please, bestow upon us your shared wisdom. No doubt between you you’ve come up with something extraordinarily brilliant. A plan involving pickled eggs, perhaps?’

Merlin clears his throat and takes a slight step away from Gwaine.

‘I wouldn’t say it was extraordinarily brilliant,’ Gwaine says. ‘More a – nudge in the right direction. Of course if you’d rather play with your map – ’

‘Out with it.’

‘Everyone needs to find someone to sing with,’ Merlin says, ‘someone significant to them – a lover, wife, husband, close friends – ’

‘And this theory is based on..?’

Merlin gestures to the others – who all exchange nervous glances – before waving at himself and Gwaine. 

‘And I saw Geoffrey and his wife – they twirled around the library, singing to each other – they need a sit down for the dizziness but they’re fine.’

‘Perhaps we could test the theory, sire?’ Leon says. ‘If we find two people we know to have feelings for each other and this works, that would be proof? I normally pay no attention to idle gossip, but on a couple of occasions I’ve caught Sir Blacwin _in flagrante_ with Lady Margaret – ’ 

‘Bring them both to the Great Hall,’ Arthur says, ‘quick as you can.’

Leon nods, beckons to Gwaine, Elyan, and Percival to join him. They split up outside, Leon and Gwaine dodging a guard singing a low, tuneless ballad about how his mother never loved him, and descending the stairs to the knights’ quarters. The air hums with a dozen or so distant voices combining into an eerie, echoing grumble which stirs up, like there’s a snoring beast asleep below the castle. Leon swallows heavily, and halts on the second from last step.

‘Should we stop by the armoury?’ he says.

‘He’s a man under a singing spell, not a bear.’

‘The others?’

‘I’ll admit they could do with a tuning fork.’

A look of disquiet passes over Leon’s face, but he edges down the rest of the steps anyway, his footsteps in the corridor mingling with the general burble of song and a low, murmured tune that they realise – as they round the corner – belongs to Lancelot. He hasn’t strayed much since the morning – strokes the stone on the wall, singing to himself. He clocks them – his face a mask of infinite blank sadness – and straightens, his arms rising at his side. 

‘Where’s Blacwin sleep?’ Gwaine says, and Leon jerks his head in – thankfully – the opposite direction. 

They move down the corridor – Lancelot following but slowly – and as they pass every door, inside people stir, their songs growing in fervour and volume, and they rattle the latches to try and escape.

‘This one,’ Leon says, indicating a door to his left. ‘Ready?’

‘Not a bear, Leon.’

Leon sighs, exactly the same way he does when Gwaine mocks his training exercises, and undoes the catch. Blacwin – his usually alert eyes devoid of anything but despair – lurches for Leon, snatching at his tunic – gripping hard as he sings an angry, passionate love song. Leon mutters:

‘Now Sir Blacwin – _really_ , I’ll thank you to unhand me.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ Gwaine says, and raps him on the nose. 

Blacwin releases Leon, and Gwaine uses his surprise to get his arms behind his back. He struggles – still singing – and Leon holds the door while Gwaine bundles him into the corridor – and right into Lancelot, whose face has worsened from melancholy goat to one longing to be put out of its misery. 

‘Does Sir Lancelot have a – sweetheart?’ Leon says, fighting to be heard over Blacwin, Lancelot, and the tuneless mumbling swirling out from the other rooms.

‘Not that I know of, although we’re not the greatest of friends,’ Gwaine says, dodging Blacwin’s flailing head. ‘Whenever I’ve seen him lately he’s been alone and brooding. Don’t suppose we should leave him here, though.’

Leon grabs Lancelot’s shoulder and steers him towards the stairs. He complies much more docilely than Blacwin, who Gwaine has to positively man-handle, forcing every step with a kick to the back of his heel and an encouraging jolt of his arm. They pause at the top of the staircase because there’s a gaggle of guards, each of them trying to out-sing the rest in a crowing, tuneless boast about who’ll be the next to be knighted. 

‘This had better work,’ Leon says, ‘I’m getting the most terribly irritating headache.’

Outside the Great Hall, Lancelot spots a moth resting in a crevice, comes to a dead halt. Leon tugs on his arm but he holds steadfast, tears in his eyes as he warbles out his tune to it. 

‘Leave him,’ Gwaine says. ‘He won’t get far.’

Leon helps him drag Blacwin through the door and into the hall. Arthur paces through the golden light cast by the windows, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that might stave off the noise from below. A short way off Gwen sits on Morgana’s old throne, singing softly to the wood. Merlin nibbles his lip and looks nervously between them, expression tense when he meets Gwaine’s eye. 

‘I’m afraid you’ve wasted your effort,’ Arthur says. ‘Merlin’s idea doesn’t work.’

‘But sire, we haven’t tried yet.’

‘Not with Sir Blacwin, perhaps, but I conducted my own experiment and – surprise surprise, Merlin was wrong.’

Merlin looks pointedly at Gwen, who’s as blank as a picture frame missing a painting, and Gwaine eyebrows, _she didn’t sing to Arthur?_ Merlin shakes his head – abruptly stops when Arthur looks at him. Blacwin struggles, starts up another verse, an impassioned plea for clemency from the horrible, painful separation from his one, true devoted. He’s just made a play for a note well without his range when Elyan leads in who Gwaine presumes is Lady Margaret – a tall, fair woman, still in her nightgown, her hair knotted in rags. Blacwin’s body changes immediately – softens – stops struggling as he just stares and stares and stares at her, his face awash with delight. Her face does the same – the slackness falls away, joy darting in her eyes. She races for Blacwin, and when Gwaine releases him she takes his hands, gathering them up to her chest. 

Gwaine’s not sure what the name for the dance they do is, but it’s graceful and sweeping and they waft around the hall like there’s no-one else there and it’s their wedding day. Maybe Blacwin thinks the rags are flowers and the nightdress is the most beautiful, jewelled gown. Or maybe he doesn’t care, because his voice has found its counterpoint. As soon as Gwaine thinks that he notices he’s the only one really watching the couple. Merlin’s intent on Arthur, who looks destroyed behind a barely-holding impassive facade, while Elyan kneels at Gwen’s feet, checking she’s all right, and Percival and Leon stand conspicuously far apart, avoiding each other’s eyes. 

Blacwin and Lady Margaret come to rest in a patch of sunlight. It makes pretty patterns on them both as they blink at each other and come to. Then they both notice where they are, and the Lady Margaret curtseys, until she notices what she’s wearing a lets out a tiny cry of horror. 

‘Sire – forgive – I’ve no idea why – _how_ – ’

Arthur arrests her protest with a raise of his hand. 

‘There is nothing to apologise for. I’m afraid you were both under a spell, but we believe it is now broken and you will be fine. You have my word that the culprit will be found and dealt with. Sir Blacwin, are you feeling able to escort the lady home?’

‘Certainly. It would be my honour.’

‘Then please,’ Arthur says, and gestures to the door. ‘Report to Sir Leon when you return. I’m afraid we’re going to have need of you.’

Blacwin tucks his hand into his stomach and dips in a formal bow, then leads the Lady Margaret out, both of them looking flushed and a bit giddy as they pass. Them gone, Arthur casts one glance at Gwen, then stiffens.

‘Sir Percival and Sir Elyan, take the first shift at the gate. Sir Leon, we’ll need a list of everyone unwed who was in the castle yesterday.’ 

‘Why unwed?’ Merlin says.

‘Because, Merlin, the spell appears to have struck in the night. Those wed to each other can be relied upon to have already located the object of their affection on the pillow next to them.’

‘That’s a very rosy view you have of marriage, there,’ Gwaine says, and Arthur glares at him. 

‘Start with anyone who lives in the lower town to try and contain any panic. Anyone whose affections are known or suspected will be brought here to be paired up and left to sing.’

‘What about the others?’ Leon says. ‘Widows, widowers, those whose love is unrequited?’

‘Bring them all here,’ Arthur says, his tone hardening. ‘Perhaps they’ll have friends within the castle and that will suffice. If not – well, god help us, Merlin mentioned something about a possible jar plan.’

Leon nods and turns, beckoning them all out. Gwaine goes to join them, but Arthur says: 

‘Not you, Gwaine.’ 

Leon closes the door, and it’s hardly in its place before Merlin speaks, gaze darting from Gwen to Arthur.

‘It doesn’t mean anything, Arthur. You’re cured – maybe both of you still need to be – ’

‘Stop babbling, Merlin,’ he says. Merlin’s shoulders sink and Arthur’s jaw works under his skin for composure. ‘Gwaine, you will see Guinevere home and make sure she’s safe before meeting up with Sir Leon in the lower town.’

Orders given, Arthur faces the wall, deep in thought, or something that’s supposed to look like it. Merlin meets Gwaine’s eye, throws up his hands in a tiny gesture of dismay. Gwaine crosses the room and takes Gwen lightly by the wrist. She stops what she was burbling to the grain of the wood and looks up. 

‘Time to go home,’ Gwaine says, gently. ‘Come quietly or I’ll have to toss you over my shoulder.’

Gwen – whether she can hear him or not – complies, her footsteps echoing in the vastness of the hall. Arthur’s gaze stays fixed on the wall until just as they cross the threshold. Gwaine ducks his head and fastens the door behind them – but he can still see Arthur’s anguish, like it’s burning through the wood. He thinks, _poor bastard_ – then a low note crawls down the wall and he remembers he left Lancelot crooning at a moth. He doesn’t have to look far for him – he’s caressing the wall and purring at it so low there don’t appear to be any words. Gwaine edges round to him, keeping Gwen behind him in case his tone changes. Lancelot’s head tilts, turns, as he hears them approach. His gaze passes over Gwaine, disinterested, but when it finds Gwen’s face he gasps. His brow unknots, his eyes glittering, his skin taking on the glow of candlelight rather than the dinge of the corridor. 

Gwaine shoots a look at Gwen. She mirrors his expression – rises up on her toes, slackness of her jaw and the absent-minded tune gone – and darts into his arms. Lancelot catches her, lifts her up and spins her round. As her feet land they break into a light ditty – the kind of thing which makes Gwaine think of meadows and running and flowers and the tickle of grass – their gaze never leaving the other’s. 

As the last of their shared note dies away, they stand, holding hands, breathing heavy and fast at each other. Reality creeps over their faces, and after a very, very draggy moment, they both look at Gwaine with eyes which verge on distraught.

‘Oh,’ Gwaine says. ‘Well, this is a pickle.’

*

‘You need to be more blank in the eyes,’ Gwaine says.

He moves round Gwen’s table to the mirror, where Lancelot stares at himself, trying to make his expression look suitably absent. Unfortunately, he looks like a man who just had the greatest shag of his life, his cheeks lit with a blush and his mouth unable to keep from smiling. 

‘And – just relax your jaw a tad?’ Gwaine says, his enthusiasm for his brilliant _hey, what we’ll do, you’ll both pretend nothing happened, waft around the castle singing whatever you want to make up, and we’ll... I don’t know, Lancelot can sing to the stable hand and we’ll find a way to make Arthur think he cured Gwen after all_ plan dwindling by the second. ‘There, that’s – shit. Utter shit.’ He sighs, thinking about how much he doesn’t want to go back to the castle and tell Arthur the woman he loves sang her heart out at someone else. ‘Gwen? You want to try, or – ’ 

Gwen pinches her lips together and looks away, before mustering herself with a rejig of her shoulders. She lets her head fall to one side just like Gwaine showed Lancelot, makes a decent attempt at slackening her jaw. 

‘Now sing something. Like – like you’re not thinking of the words, you’re just going with what you feel. Only not – um – not those feelings,’ Gwaine says, pointing at Lancelot. ‘The other ones. The Arthur ones. I mean they exist, right?’ 

‘Of course they exist,’ she says, head snapping back up. ‘I can’t help what I sang.’

‘Nor I,’ Lancelot says, the recently-shagged blush diminishing until he’s back to melancholy goat.

‘And it doesn’t mean – ’ Gwen falters, voice dying until she straightens up again. ‘I’ve every intention of being true to Arthur. He – he needs someone, and just because our circumstances are far from ideal – just because we can’t be together properly, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel – ’

Gwen runs out of words and her eyes fall closed. Lancelot shifts his weight, looks Gwaine directly in the eye.

‘I wouldn’t want you to think there has been any impropriety.’

‘Hey, none of my business,’ Gwaine says. ‘I don’t care if you’ve been pleasuring yourself with dead canaries.’ Lancelot’s forehead twists. ‘Not that I think you’d – sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I was just trying to think of something less appropriate than fancying the apple of prince’s eye and – ’ Gwaine swallows, and Gwen and Lancelot exchange a glance positively oozing with guilt. ‘Anyway, affairs of the heart are far from my speciality. My only hope for my own is that were I to offer it to someone, they’d treat it kindly. And were they to set it aside, they’d do so as soon as they realised they didn’t want it, so I might give it to someone else.’ 

Gwen sighs, looks at the mirror.

‘How did Arthur react,’ she says, ‘when I didn’t sing with him?’

‘Me answering that does no-one any favours.’

Lancelot’s head dips, his eyes trained on the floor.

‘I’ll leave,’ he says. ‘I shouldn’t have stayed.’

‘No,’ Gwen says. ‘You can’t keep running away from this.’

‘Then what?’

‘I don’t know but I can’t pretend to Arthur,’ Gwen says. ‘I can’t lie to him.’

‘Can you tell him the truth?’

‘First I’d have to know what it is.’

The air thickens as they look at each other, and Gwaine gestures to the door. 

‘I’m going to wait outside,’ he says. ‘Whatever you decide, Arthur’ll want to know you’re better, Gwen.’

He nods at them both and backs out, the relative normality of the lower town relief as it greets him, a wash of life going on, unburdened by songs and love. He leans on the wall and stretches, watching as a woman shoos a dog away with a broom and two small girls pass him, giggling and pointing at his hair as they go. 

Lancelot joins him after a little while, his expression sober but some certainty in his eyes.

‘What are our orders?’ he says. 

‘We’re meeting Leon to round up anyone who’s afflicted and take them to the castle to try and find their – songmate, I guess we’ll call it.’

They walk along the street, ears pricked for anyone singing, but most who live here aren’t the kind who end up in Camelot’s service. 

‘What do you think it means, a songmate?’ Lancelot says.

‘I hardly claim expertise.’

‘But you said you found yours in Merlin. You know what it means to you, what Merlin means to you.’ 

Gwaine looks at him. Lancelot smiles, sad and goatly, dips his chin in a deferential, _didn’t mean to pry_. But he hasn’t so much as pried as prised a thought from the back of Gwaine’s head and shoved it front and centre.

‘Ask me, you don’t have to sing at someone to understand your own heart, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t nice to know my feelings aren’t doing a solo. Still, what’s there today mightn’t be tomorrow, so it doesn’t change anything, really.’ 

‘Not for me, it seems. Ah, there’s Sir Leon.’

All afternoon Lancelot runs himself ragged rounding up the people on the unwed list, and out-does Leon in his efforts to be the most knightly knight in Camelot. _If you need something doing more effectively and quickly than it should be able to be done_ , Gwaine thinks, _trust a lovesick man with a guilty conscience_. 

Gwaine eventually crawls back to his chamber after hours of ferrying people to the castle one and two at a time, then a stint on the gate giving Elyan a reprieve. Every step drags, and he pushes through the door thinking of little but toppling onto the mattress, even though he knows sleep won’t come when all around voices clamour behind the doors, their counterpoints not yet found. 

One candle burns on the table, waiting for him, and in the light it casts on the wall he can just make out the jut of a hip, and pale arms curled around his pillow. Merlin’s taking up most of his bed, something in his ears to block out the noise, all his clothes but his shirt and trousers piled on the floor.

Gwaine swallows as a day of missing him races up to nudge at his ribcage. He kicks off his boots, and slides in next to Merlin, using every muscle to stay balanced precariously on the very edge of the mattress so as not disturb him. He settles an arm across the pillow above Merlin’s head, and hooks his fingers around the frame to lock himself in place. _Songmates_ , he thinks. What he said to Lancelot stirs through his thoughts: _doesn’t change anything, doesn’t mean anything_. He doesn’t quite believe himself, though, because when Lancelot was dancing with Gwen, it looked like it meant something huge; it looked like to each other they were summer.

Merlin murmurs and inches up, and Gwaine edges into the warmth of Merlin’s body. He looks down and Merlin’s eyes glint, open. Gwaine mouths, _sorry I woke you_ , and guides his hair away from his forehead to kiss beneath, thrilling that he’s allowed.

‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep,’ Merlin says, far too loudly, and Gwaine bites back a grin. Merlin goes to remove whatever he’s got in his ears, but Gwaine stills his fingers and meets his eye, shaking his head. ‘Just – me and Gaius – I cured him, told him what I did and – ’

‘He kick you out?’ Gwaine says, right into Merlin’s ear, scuffing the shell with the words and then a kiss.

‘Shouted. I deserved it.’

Gwaine touches his chin in a _no, you didn’t_ , says:

‘S’not a real fight unless they kick you out. Be fine in the morning.’

Merlin smiles an unconvinced _thanks_ , moves more towards the wall so Gwaine can get in properly. When he’s settled, Merlin flops on top of him, lays his arm across Gwaine’s chest, drops his chin onto it, and looks at him, glum. Clear as if they’re dueting again, Gwaine can tell they’re thinking the same thing: 

_Strange, this. I’m glad you’re here to do it with._

He fits a palm to Merlin’s cheek, draws him up for a kiss. It becomes more involved than he intended, and the noise of the castle fades under the sound of his own heartbeat as his body forgets its tiredness and swaps one kind of ache for another. Merlin takes their shirts off, getting his head caught in his own, hair disarrayed when he emerges. He presses a tentative, open-mouthed kiss to the middle of Gwaine chest, moves down leaving fluttering warmth, sliding Gwaine’s trousers with him as he goes, eyes trained up to check reactions he’s deaf to.

Gwaine cradles the back of his head, keeps their gazes locked, doesn’t hold back or try to stifle or hide or pretend this is less to him than it is. He’s no longer singing what he feels, but he thinks Merlin can pick out the tune, anyway. He finds he doesn’t mind it, because in every little touch of Merlin’s tongue and every shift of his eyes in the dark, he can feel what he feels, echoing back.

*

‘You decent, Gwaine?’

There’s a rap on the door of the Leonish sort to accompany the shout, and Gwaine blinks too little sleep out of his eyes, the noise of dozens of songs racing up from a dull hum beneath his dreams to swamp his head. He rubs at his eyebrow, where a clench has set up camp and spreads tightness all across his skull. He’s had more pleasant week-long hangovers. He shouts back:

‘Am I ever?’ 

‘I’ll settle for partially clothed.’

‘Give me a minute, then.’

Merlin stirs as he moves, and Gwaine lifts a finger to his lips as Merlin squints one-eyed confusion at him. Gwaine pulls the bedclothes over him, retrieves his trousers from the floor, tugs them up and fastens them on his way to answer the door, kicking Merlin’s things under the bed. 

‘Prince Arthur wants to see us all immediately.’

‘It’s barely day.’

Leon gives him his _ours is not to question_ look, and after getting an affirmative eye roll, trots down the corridor. Gwaine lets the door swing closed, and under the blankets Merlin groans. Gwaine retrieves his shirt and flicks it at the curve of his arse. Rumpled hair appears, grimacing eyes, and Gwaine mimes taking something out of his ears. Merlin does, wincing deep as the noise of the castle floods in.

‘Duty calls.’

Merlin mutters something like, _tell duty to bugger off_ , but he emerges anyway, practically sliding out from under the blankets and into his clothes. Once upright he screws the heel of his hand into his eyebrow and stretches, sheepish and sleepy, blinking at the day – apparently a bit surprised it’s day he’s looking at, like one’s never happened before. 

‘What d’you have in your ears, there, anyway?’

‘Bread. Surprisingly effective.’

‘Clever.’

Gwaine leans in until they’re nose to nose, and Merlin meets his mouth with a smile, murmuring about morning breath. He tastes musky with sleep, but he drapes his arms around Gwaine’s neck and Gwaine absolutely doesn’t care. 

‘Tonight – you want to curl up in my bed again,’ he says, working his thumbs in lazy circles on Merlin’s hips, ‘you are more than welcome.’

They inch together, and Gwaine longs to ease Merlin back on the mattress, pull a blanket over their heads, and for them to make each other giggle and groan until there’s nothing else in the world. Unfortunately the _situation_ drones in the corridor, and there’s another knock on the door. 

‘You decent yet, Gwaine? As you ever get, anyway.’

‘Yeah, I’m – cranky but clothed,’ he says, and Merlin sniggers into his wrist then smartly fixes his face into a look of casual innocence as Leon sticks his head in.

‘Better get a – ah, Merlin?’ he says, forehead crinkling.

‘He was just letting me in on a tip – bread in the ears, apparently it’s a wonder,’ Gwaine says, and Merlin holds out his hand where two smooshed crusts sit.

‘Oh, excellent. I’ll pass it on. Ready?’

They follow Leon down the corridor, the doors rattling as they pass, behind them the songs vexed and shrill. For a band of knights who spend every day together learning to move and think as one, they’re surprisingly out of tune with each other.

‘Sounds like they’re getting worse,’ Gwaine says. 

‘That’s the way of the spell. People lose their minds to it – get more and more agitated until there’s nothing of them left,’ Merlin says. Leon glances at him, and he swallows and adds a shrug and an adeptly off-hand, ‘Or so Gaius thinks.’

As they enter the council chamber, Arthur’s pacing at the head of the table, and Gaius looks at Merlin, his hands tucked inside his sleeves. Merlin goes to his side, and Gaius leans in and says:

‘Where did you lose yourself to?’ 

‘Went for a walk.’ 

‘ _All_ night?’

His eyebrow lifts, and Merlin smiles, tucks his hand behind his back, catching his elbow.

‘Status report?’ Arthur says.

‘Eight additional knights and fifteen guardsmen cured so far, along with a handful of courtiers,’ Leon says. ‘The kitchens are almost fully-staffed owing to a – well, they obviously fraternise down there – same goes for the stables – and about two-thirds of the maids will be returning to duty today. I took the liberty of performing a headcount last night and there are sixty-three known cases outstanding. The most – er – aggressive are housed in the cells, the rest in the guard quarters for their own safety. A small contingent of the more – um – passive are still free-roaming, hence the – ’ He waves at the window and the rough, jagged chorus beyond. ‘I’ve seen to it that food is made available but they don’t seem of a mind to eat. Oh, and talking of – if anyone has any, Merlin informs me that bread makes an excellent plug for the ears.’

Arthur nods in acknowledgement, and Leon steps back, rolling up his scroll.

‘Gaius, how is the king this morning?’ Arthur says. 

‘He’s very weak, sire. I fear his mind cannot take much more. I tried showing him a picture of Ygraine, but alas.’

‘Then perhaps we should waste no more time and administer the other remedy?’

‘Indeed I feel that might be the best thing. I will need assistance for the – er – jar part of the plan.’

‘I can spare Merlin for however long it takes.’ 

Gaius nods, and Arthur leans on the back of his chair, eying them all from beneath his fringe.

‘Camelot appears to be on its way back to normality after yesterday’s – situation,’ he says. ‘The spell’s effects may not linger, but I fear the threat Camelot faces has never been greater. This sorcerer is dangerous, and only luck prevented us from being invaded while our defences were weak. I will not leave Camelot’s safety to chance. Whoever is responsible is to be found and dealt with. Sir Leon, send a party to where we made camp. Maybe there’s something there which can give us a clue as to the sorcerer’s identity, and round up anyone with connections to Morgana or to the druids. After a day in the cells with the enchanted, maybe one of them will talk.’

‘Bit of a wild goose chase, isn’t it?’ Gwaine says. ‘Whoever it was, they’ll be long gone, and besides – no real harm’s been done.’

‘No real harm?’ Arthur says, his eyes narrowing and his voice rising. ‘ _Sixty-three_ still untreated – the knights of Camelot are now the subject of tavern jokes – and my father’s condition has been considerably worsened.’

‘Like I said, no real harm. At least on two of those.’

‘You want to warm the cells up for them, Gwaine?’

Gwaine rolls his eyes, goes to say something else but a glance from Merlin quashes it.

‘This sorcerer will be found,’ Arthur says. ‘The people need to see that although Uther is no longer in a position to govern alone, Camelot is as strong as ever.’

*

It takes them four wearying days to rid the castle of the song struck. Some people’s songmates remain elusive, and they do actually have to resort to burying jars of breath well outside the city walls. As the singing dwindles, whispers about the search for the sorcerer take its place, spreading ear to ear. They become louder suspicions as the people tell tales on each other, _her in the village, she’s always up to something_ and _him, you know the one, I always said there’s something shifty about him_ , and the cells fill with the scared faces of the rumour-accused.

At the end of each day, Gwaine returns to his chamber with a nervous stammer under his breastbone and waits for Merlin to sneak in. They curl into each other, trade relief as kisses, and try to forget it at least while they’re together in the dark. But the dread of Merlin’s discovery lurks all around them, like it’s stuck to their skin and tightening, and on the night the castle finally falls quiet, Gwaine can’t even bear to wait for Merlin to find him. 

Inky bluish night drapes the courtyard as he crosses it, and the castle sits blank, the flatness of it ringing in his ears. His footsteps feel unnaturally loud just because for the first time in a week he can hear them. Gwaine rounds the shadow of the corner, heading for Gaius’s chamber, thinking of excuses to use to see if Merlin’s there – _need his help with a delicate matter – think there’s an evil mould in my quarters_ , knowing they’d mostly likely turn on his lips to, _look I’m too tired and tetchy to make stuff up, Gaius, just imagine I said something clever and winning and tell me where he is, will you?_

Before he gets quite there, though, Merlin creeps out of the room arse-first. He casts a furtive look back inside, bites his lip as he ever-so-carefully closes the door, turns – then starts when he sees Gwaine. He laughs at himself even as his hand instinctively clutches his chest, and Gwaine floods with such gladness to see him he lets himself forget how firmly rooted his worries are in reality.

‘What’re you up to, then?’ he says. ‘Sneaking out to see someone?’

‘Needlessly, apparently.’

‘Who, me? Nah, I was just passing.’

Merlin smiles at him, sweet but disbelieving, reaches out, hooks a finger through his, and swings their hands together.

‘You want to come in?’ he says. ‘Gaius is asleep.’

‘I’ve a better idea.’

Gwaine crooks his finger around Merlin’s, and starts walking backwards down the hall. Merlin lets him go until their arms are both fully out-stretched, then rolls his eyes and follows with fake reluctance. Gwaine doesn’t drop the hold until they spill out into the castle’s gaze, where he gestures to the gate. 

‘Where are we going?’ 

‘Anywhere we want,’ Gwaine says, wishing it were true, and briefly allowing himself a daydream of them both, far away from here, maybe in one of those clearings he’s seen full of druids where Merlin wouldn’t have to hide and sneak.

‘I always fancied The Western Isles,’ Merlin says, adopting an imitation of a faraway gaze.

‘You’d like it there. There are these caves where ice crawls up the walls and the locals make a powerful brew that makes you see everything in pink for days. S’probably ten different kinds of illegal and more than likely fatal – but then isn’t everything, in the end?’

Merlin chuckles, and they get a stiff nod as they pass from one of the guards Gwaine knocked unconscious. Out in the town there’s a light on at Gwen’s. They both glance at it, trying to work out how many shadows and of what shape and size are moving inside. Even in the quiet, the effects of Gwen’s song burble on: her scurrying everywhere, keeping busy doing nothing, while Lancelot mopes, melancholy goating enough for a herd.

‘He still sulking, Arthur?’ Gwaine says.

‘No, more – ’

‘Being a total bastard to hide how hurt he is?’

Merlin sniffs amusement but shakes his head in admonishment at the same time. 

‘I offered to keep him company tonight but he wasn’t in the mood, if the flying cutlery was anything to go by.’

‘Lancelot’s doing the right thing keeping out of his way, then.’

‘Maybe,’ Merlin says, and fiddles with his sleeve. ‘He usually does – the right thing, that is. Or at least what he thinks the right thing is.’ 

‘You knew didn’t you? Before, about him and Gwen.’

‘Yeah. It’s all my fault – I’m the one who asked him to come back. I’m a one man catastrophe.’

‘You didn’t tell them who to love.’

‘Doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty,’ Merlin says. ‘Lancelot’s a good man.’

‘Handsome bugger, too.’

Merlin meets his eye with an, _I’m not sure how that’s relevant, but if you say so, Gwaine_. 

They walk until the walls of the city fall away, carve a path through the wheat field where the breeze rustles the stalks. It’ll be autumn soon, and Gwaine wonders what the place will look like when the green falls and everywhere blazes orange and red and ochre. 

‘When she wants to be, Camelot’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ he says.

‘Don’t let Arthur hear you say that. It’ll go to his head. You got a destination in mind, or are we just wandering and admiring the place?’

‘Just wandering. Why?’

‘I must have done forty laps of the castle today. My feet are killing me.’ Merlin rubs at his neck and offers a correction: ‘Actually, all of me is killing me.’

‘Here’ll do, then,’ Gwaine says, and plonks down where they are, crushing out a little patch amongst the crop and releasing sweetness all around them.

Merlin shakes his head but joins him on the ground, sitting between Gwaine’s bent knees and reaching out to snatch a blade of wheat and wind it around his finger. Gwaine catches Merlin’s chin, turns his head, and Merlin sighs, his breath a tingle of reply before his mouth gives and he responds, gently pulling Gwaine’s lip between his. Just for a second Gwaine lets himself pretend they live in a tiny village where Merlin grows herbs and tends sick cats, even though he knows they’d both be bored of that life within two days. 

‘Come here, you,’ he says, easing Merlin back against his chest. ‘I missed you today.’

‘How's the search for me going?’ 

Gwaine kisses his shoulder, thinking that whatever else they talk about, and whatever make-believe he tries, Merlin’s secrets and his burdens are always there, just underneath.

‘There’s nothing to find, is there?’

‘S’only a matter of time. I was never as careful as Gaius told me to be.’

‘We’ve just got to wait it out.’ 

Merlin sighs, toys with his wheat, fingers folding it in two and twisting the free ends back and forth in a pattern requiring no thought. Gwaine snakes an arm around his waist and holds, resting his chin in the crook of Merlin’s neck, watching. Eventually, when he’s made a short run of knots, all perfectly uneven, Merlin says:

‘I went to the dungeon. It’s full. I didn’t know so many people had been arrested.’

‘Merlin, you weren’t to know what would happen. It’s not – ’

‘Have you been down there?’

‘No. Why?’

‘There are children,’ he says. ‘Arthur’s not Uther – he’s just holding them as an incentive for the adults to tell the truth, he says – but still, it’s not that far from history repeating itself.’

‘How so?’ 

‘Sorcerer does something – people who don’t deserve to pay the price. Never thought I’d be the cause of that.’

Merlin sighs again, small and wretched, and Gwaine has no idea what to say. He just tightens his arm and tucks Merlin into him and hopes it counts, a little bit.

‘You’re right, though,’ Merlin says, staring back at the citadel as it peeks out above the crop. ‘Camelot _is_ beautiful.’

He has the look of a man taking in the details so he can paint the scene later, and Gwaine’s stomach knots like the wheat in Merlin’s fingers as his brain pulls together the string of his mood, the last few days, and everything Gwaine knows about him, and knits them into an unavoidable and maybe even inevitable conclusion. 

‘You thinking of doing what I think you’re thinking of doing, Merlin?’ he says. ‘You going to tell Arthur the truth?’

Merlin drops his head back, looks at Gwaine from his shoulder. The angle’s awkward but still he’s compelling, all eyes and delicate sadness.

‘If I am?’

‘When it comes to it,’ Gwaine says, ‘I’ve not much to show for myself, save for that I’ve always done what I thought in my heart was right. I’m not going to tell you not to do the same.’

‘Damn.’

Gwaine sighs a laugh, and Merlin rolls his eyes, the corners of them flickering with uncertainty. 

‘We could stay here,’ Gwaine says, gesturing to their little hidey-hole in the field. ‘We’d have food and I’m sure with enough trial and error we could figure out how to brew – well, something.’ Merlin looks at the stars, shakes his head, and Gwaine thinks he must really have had his fill of hiding to not even want to joke about it for a second. ‘You worried?’

‘No, just – lightly terrified.’

‘Don’t be. Stranger things have happened than Arthur accepting you have magic.’

‘Have they?’

‘He made me a knight, didn’t he?’ Gwaine says, nudging Merlin’s temple with his nose. 

‘He’s been raised to think all magic is evil.’

‘Yeah, but he knows you’re not.’

‘I used to think I knew him,’ Merlin says, gaze skipping between the stars. ‘I used to think if something happened and he found out that he’d seen enough of me to at least let me try and explain. Now, he’s so angry at this sorcerer – I just can’t tell what he’ll do.’

‘The very best people are unpredictable. And Arthur – whatever he says to you and whatever he throws at you, you stand very high in his regard.’

‘That’s what I’m relying on, is it? His regard?’

‘Not just that.’ 

Gwaine takes Merlin’s hand. Gently he unfurls his fingers from around the wheat he’s knotted, sets the little woven string on his knee. He lifts Merlin’s hand up to show him the lines across his own palm, reaching round him to trace the one that runs vertical down from his fingers. 

‘You’re going to grow old, remember? Really, really old,’ he says. 'No burnt or drowned or beheaded here.' Resisting the urge to look for a split in the furrow across the middle of Merlin’s hand, Gwaine runs his finger over the little linked up twists that make a path below his thumb. ‘And you’ve more than your fair share of luck to see you through.’ Merlin turns his head to look at him. ‘And whether you believe that stuff or not doesn’t matter, because there’s something I’ve learned. When everything else is gone and you’re on your own with something huge and frightening, there’s still something to trust, something to put your faith in.’

‘What?’

‘You.’ Gwaine folds Merlin’s fingers back up, curling them into a fist inside his own. ‘Everything you need, Merlin,’ he whispers, ‘ _everything_ you need to do anything is right here in your hand. Always.’

*

‘Where have you been?’ Leon says, puffing towards them on a cloud of cloak beneath the disgruntled clang of the warning bell.

‘I was off-duty,’ Gwaine says, ‘and some of us have better things to occupy our time when we’re _off-duty_ than practice doing up our bedroll.’

‘One of the prisoners has escaped,’ Leon says, nostrils slightly flared with indignation. ‘Arthur’s furious.’

Merlin looks up at Arthur’s room, but there’s no light in it, and they skip up the steps into the castle, meet Elyan and Percival talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. 

‘No sign of a struggle,’ Percival says, ‘and the guards didn’t see anything. Prisoners have closed ranks.’

‘Let’s hope Sir Blacwin and Sir Lancelot have better luck in their pursuit. Guard? Quiet the bell.’

The guard closest shuffles off, ankles clicking together, and when he’s gone Elyan glances back to where they came from – off in the direction of the cells. Torchlight shows the way, and over the shuffling run of the guards Gwaine hears a child cry. 

‘This is not exactly what I signed up for,’ Elyan says. ‘Someone runs at me with a sword that’s one thing but the druids say she’s only seventeen.’

‘Doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous,’ Percival says.

‘Did any of them look dangerous when we dragged them out of their homes?’ Elyan says. ‘If they’re all secretly brimming with magical powers, why didn’t any of them put up a fight?’

‘The prince knows what he’s doing,’ Leon says, but even his eyes waver a little in their certainty as a young, girlish voice hushes the crying child and tells it to be quiet or they’ll burn. ‘Make sure the children are comfortable.’

‘They’re in the cells, Leon,’ Gwaine says. ‘There is no _comfortable_ when you don’t know if your head will still be your own when the sun rises. Takes more than some extra straw to ease that burden, I can tell you.’

Leon frowns the frown of a good boy caught between duty and his impulse to chivalry. Gwaine wonders how many things he’s done that he regrets when he blows the candle out. _Lament of any knight_ , he thinks, _never questioning until you’re on your own with the ceiling and everything you’ve done because someone else didn’t want to get their hands dirty._

‘Where’s Arthur?’ Merlin says, and his fingers fidget at his side. 

‘With his father,’ Percival says. 

‘I’d better – ’ 

Merlin waves in the vague direction of the king’s chamber, voice heavy. He meets Gwaine’s eye, and Gwaine can read his thoughts again as perfectly as if they were his own.

_I thought we’d have more time._

Gwaine’s fingers twitch with the urge to touch him, like he can press some kind of protection to his skin, but before he can think of a way to get them alone Leon says:

‘He was looking for you earlier. Best hurry. He’s not in the mood to be disobeyed.’

Merlin gives a little nod, and dampens his lips. He turns, and with only half a glance back at Gwaine, he’s gone. Gwaine thinks in falsely chipper sentiments – _it’ll be fine, you’ve got that whole destiny thing, right? What’s going to go wrong with that?_ – as if Merlin can hear him, but his thoughts fade with Merlin’s footsteps and all he can hear then is the canter of his own heart.

‘Double the guard,’ Leon says, ‘in case this is an orchestrated breakout.’

‘You really think she might just be the first?’

‘We need to prepare for every eventuality. Elyan, monitor the gate. If Lancelot and Blacwin return without the girl we’ll track her at first light. Gwaine, you – ’

‘You really need me for this?’ Gwaine says, and without waiting for an answer he walks away, adds, ‘No, thought not. G‘night.’ 

‘Gwaine, what are you – ’ 

Gwaine keeps going, Leon’s demands for him to get back this instant echoing in his stead. He takes the stairs two at a time, makes his way along the long, stone corridor, the guards nodding as he passes, deferential just because he’s usually wearing a crest. He turns the corner, and Merlin’s just ahead, his lips working silently as he paces outside the king’s door – rehearsing what he’s going to say.

‘Merlin,’ he hisses, and Merlin stops, mouthing surprise at him. Gwaine jogs the rest of the way. ‘I – ’

The door to the king’s chamber opens and Gaius backs out – startles, and drops the potion bottle he was carrying. It shatters into a puddle of liquid and sparkling glass, taking Gwaine’s words with it.

‘Sorry,’ Merlin whispers. 

‘No matter,’ Gaius says, watching the potion leak away. ‘The king was in no position to drink it. I was just going to fetch some water and see if he might take that, at least.’

‘Arthur’s with him?’

‘Was him who called for me. I’ve advised him to stay all night. The coughing fit brought on by the remedy weakened Uther considerably. I can’t say with any certainty he’ll live to see the sun rise.’

Gwaine offers Gaius a little bow as he carries on down the corridor, and Merlin meets his eye.

‘What did you want to say?’ he whispers.

‘Tell you later, eh? When this has all blown over.’

Merlin sniffs, and, with a little nod, knocks lightly on the door. 

‘This is the right thing,’ he says, to himself. 

‘Enter.’

Arthur’s voice beckons them in, and they both hover at the foot of the bed. Gwaine assumes the king’s inner sanctum used to be more grand, the wealth of the kingdom draped in red and gold folds of warmth and opulence. The room around him has been stripped of everything bar the bed, a small table that’s heavily strapped down, and the chair on which Arthur’s sitting. Around the fire there’s a guard – something Gwaine’s sure was custom-made – row upon row of blackened iron, all of it bolted down with heavy, knotted, metal. It looks more like a prison than a bedchamber, the walls streaked with gouges which look alarmingly like fingernail scratches.

Arthur straightens his shoulders, but his hand remains over his father’s. The contrast of them startles – Arthur so vital and solid, Uther more like a skeleton wearing a thin vest of flesh. His skin hangs, sallow and sweaty, his whole body trembling with effort as he noisily drags in a breath. As he exhales he sounds like he’s drowning in the contents of his own lungs, and Gwaine hates the bastard but still a bit of him flinches at the sight of a man so reduced. He notices the window, open a crack – maybe to let out some of the too-musty stench of sweat and death and shit. Beyond it the sky lies flat, one day over and the next hours away, and Gwaine thinks maybe this is the time, in the hinterland between days, that all men should leave the world.

‘The druid girl?’ Arthur says. He runs a distracted hand over his head and then brings his focus to Gwaine. His face lacks its usual Arthurness, the way what he’s thinking makes dough of his skin. He looks almost as empty as when he were enchanted, except that his eyes are red and all of him seems scrunched up beneath his shoulders. ‘She’s been caught?’

‘No.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing here? How many times do I have to say it? This sorcerer, this _girl_ is dangerous. Get out there and find her.’

Merlin hesitates, and Gwaine thinks, _what the heck_. He might as well try one last thing before Merlin throws himself into his destiny and sees if it’ll hold him.

‘You’ve no proof the spell was her doing,’ Gwaine says, ‘and whoever your sources are they’re just acting out of fear for their own necks. They’ve done nothing but populate your dungeon with women and scared little children. Ask me they’re all innocent.’

‘Expert are you, Gwaine?’

‘Reckon I’ve been around guilt enough to know what it looks like, and those poor wretches – if they knew something, they’d have said. You saw what the spell did. Close proximity to people blindly singing followed by a few days of prisoner rations and cold floors – if there were tongues to loosen they’d be loose. Let them all go and call off the search, Arthur. It’s not doing any good.’

Arthur’s gaze shifts to Merlin, and he draws in a long, weary breath.

‘You put him up to this?’ he says.

‘What? N – ’

‘We’ve been over it a hundred times,’ Arthur says, getting up, walking over to Merlin, poking him in the chest hard enough that Merlin rocks back on his heels. ‘Your lily-liver may not like it, but this sorcerer presents a threat to Camelot, and accordingly she needs to be found and punished.’

‘And for the hundred and first time, you’re making innocent people – _children_ – pay for something they didn’t do.’

Arthur lets out a frustrated growl, throwing an angry open hand to the room before taking a few steps away from Merlin and pushing his fingers into his hair. He pauses at the edge of the bed, swallows, rubbing at his eyebrow, peeking at Uther from underneath his fringe.

‘My father would say that – unpleasant as these thing are – sometimes a greater good requires certain – sacrifices.’

‘What if he’s wrong?’ Merlin says.

‘He’s not.’ 

Arthur’s voice radiates conviction, almost too certain, and Gwaine wonders if the words are really for Merlin or the man lying stricken beneath the sheets. 

‘I’ve dawdled here long enough,’ Arthur says, striding for the door. ‘Merlin, you will stay and send word _the second_ something happens. I’ll go and attend to the matter personally, since apparently an order isn’t enough these days to – ’

‘Your place is here,’ Merlin says, scurrying after him, overtaking with a little skid, trying to get in his way. 

‘My _place_ is doing what is necessary to keep the kingdom safe. My father needs a son who’s fit to rule, not one who plays nurse.’

Merlin darts round Arthur and flattens to the door.

‘Gaius said he might not last the ni – ’ 

‘Get out of the way.’

‘No.’ Arthur grabs Merlin’s sleeve, tries to pull him from the door, glaring at him, but Merlin tenses and doesn’t budge. Gwaine steps closer, eyes on Merlin for any sign he wants him to intervene. ‘Arthur,’ Merlin says, voice rising, panicked. ‘Please – just – wait.’

‘For what, Merlin?’ 

Arthur’s words ring on the stone, his pulse visibly quickened in his throat, and Merlin shrinks and looks at the ceiling for the words.

‘The spell – can you not just – let it go?’ he says.

‘ _Let it go_?’ Arthur’s neck strains and turns red as his shirt as he near shouts, and the air shimmers with the way they’re looking at each other – Merlin begging and Arthur hating him for the honest, guileless, open desperation of it. Gwaine moves closer still, back of his neck prickling with the urge to haul Arthur away or get between them. ‘He’s my _father_. Someone killed yours you’d _let it go_?’ 

‘I’m not saying it’d be easy,’ Merlin says, ‘but – yes. Finding someone to blame doesn’t make it hurt less. And your father – he was dying long before this. Gaius is the only thing keeping him alive.’

‘Say that’s true – you think, then, I should let my father depart this world taking with him as his last and final thought the knowledge he has a coward and a useless leader for a son? I won’t. _Someone_ knows where this girl is, and if not her who did this – who did _all_ of this – and I _will_ make them tell me. That sorcerer will rue the day they decided to play with Camelot and wish I simply had them burn.’

Merlin swallows – and Gwaine can see it flit through his eyes, the tangle of consequences, doubt, and destiny – all of it flickering and fading until there’s nothing left but a tiny little glimmer of faith. 

‘Arthur,’ Merlin says, ‘the spell – it was me. I’m the sorcerer.’

*

The corridor lies waiting, a nip of autumn cold whirling down from a window left open.

The guards are gone – Gwaine dismissed them on Arthur’s orders – and when he hears footsteps he reaches for his sword. Gaius rounds the top of the stairs, and Gwaine sheathes the blade again, raising his finger to his lips to meet Gaius’s questioning eyes. He presses his ear to the door. They’ve been quiet for ages, and he pictures Merlin’s expression in the wake of his confession – crumpled, scared as hell – the nod he gave anyway when Arthur told Gwaine to leave them alone. 

‘What’s – ’ Gaius whispers.

‘Arthur knows.’ 

Gaius’s fingers tighten on the jug of water he’s carrying, his head sagging down between his shoulders as the words, _oh, Merlin_ , slip from his lips. Desperate to see something of the room, Gwaine fingers the crack of the door – gently, willing it not to creak and give him away – just eases it away from the frame. It doesn’t reveal much – a sliver of a tableau – Uther on the bed, a ghost beneath a taut sheet, Merlin’s back – tense like his arms are crossed, his hands holding in his sides – and Arthur across the room from him, staring and staring like he has no idea who Merlin is.

‘The people in the cells – you can let them go. They can’t tell you anything because they don’t know anything,’ Merlin says. ‘And the druid girl who broke out – she’s innocent, Arthur, completely. I worked with no-one. No-one else shares the blame for this.’

‘What is this, some – misguided attempt to deflect attention from the real culprit?’

‘No, it’s the truth. The spell – I cast it. I didn’t know what it would do and I’m sorry – for putting Camelot in danger, for Gwen, for your father, for lying, for all of it.’

Gwaine’s heart hammers like he’s about to face a man twice his size armed only with his wits and a weedy twig, but when Arthur speaks again, it’s really, really quietly.

‘Magic is _banned_ , Merlin. Did you think the laws of Camelot bend for you? How did you even know what to do?’

‘There are books from the Old Religion,’ Merlin says. ‘The spell was in one of them – I collected the herbs and – ’

‘You waved a few herbs around and now you’re a sorcerer? Gods, Merlin, I thought you were serious but apparently all you’ve done is something roughly akin to making a salad.’

Arthur laughs – actually laughs – and Gwaine leans on the wall, pressing his cheek close to the stone, waiting for Merlin’s apologetic mutter, _sorry, sire, won’t happen again_. He feels Gaius’s relieved sigh at his shoulder, but inside the room Arthur’s expression falls when the witty retort he’s expecting doesn’t come, and Merlin unfolds his arms.

‘I am a sorcerer. Powerful one, actually, and you shouldn’t make light of what I’ve done,’ Merlin says. ‘I know how I look to you. At best I’m an idiot – someone who occasionally says the right thing by accident. I let you think that, because you liking me or respecting me was always less important than keeping you safe.’

‘Keeping _me_ safe?’ 

‘That’s what I’ve been doing with my magic, because I believe in you and who you’ll be when you’re king.’

‘This is utter nonsense.’

‘Perhaps that’s how it looks,’ Merlin says, and there’s a deadly quiet to his voice. ‘Why would you think anything else? You’ve no idea about the things – the things I’ve done for you and Camelot – the _faces_ I see when I close my eyes. Those children you threw in the cells with people half mad with singing – they were _so_ scared – but they’re just the newest addition to my collection of people who paid the price for something I did.’

‘Please, _enlighten_ me. I could do with a laugh.’

‘People have _died_ , Arthur. People I _loved_ have _died_ for my magic, to protect it, to protect me so I could carry on protecting you. And they did it because I made them believe it was worth it. I as good as killed them with my faith in you. Make fun of me all you want, but _them_? Not them. Not what they sacrificed. Don’t you dare.’

Merlin’s voice shivers with anger, and Arthur’s brow knots.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We have a destiny, Arthur. I’m supposed to be this great sorcerer – help you become the great king who unites the entire land. Why do you think I’m here? It’s not because I like picking up your things and darning your socks and being called useless and stupid. It’s because I believe in our destiny and I want to try and be worthy of it. I was prepared to make sacrifices, but they’re never mine – they’re always other people’s, and I’m tired of it. This time I want – ’

‘Have you lost your mind? At first you say you did one spell and now I’m supposed to believe we have a destiny?’ 

‘You know what? I should never have expected more of you than this. Sometimes I think destiny picked the wrong man – or _men_ – because most of the time the only thing we have in common is how completely unprepared we are for all the huge things we’re supposed to do.’ 

Silence. A minute – two – three – four, and inside the room their gazes lock and hold.

‘If I’m to believe this, I – ’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Merlin says, with a challenging tilt of his head.

‘What _can_ you do? What’s your best trick?’

‘You’ve already seen. You’ve followed lights I sent to guide you – you’ve seen me bring down roofs – you’ve seen a whole immortal army fall for no reason, and sorcerers who came here to harm you and your father disappear like nothing more than inept jesters. Those were my _tricks_.’ 

‘I don’t care what I’ve already seen. Show me something now.’

Arthur’s voice is hard again, and they stare like enemies, the kind who want to tear each other apart, not in hatred but in disappointment. Merlin holds out his hand. He says something low and garbled – and Gwaine thinks he’ll fetch an apple with a flash of his eyes, do what he did for him, something coaxing and small. Instead, the whole room adopts a faint purple glow, and in Merlin’s palm dust – or smoke – gathers into a ball. It crackles, whirls, spins and spins and spins, giving off sparks and flames and licks like fire but brighter – so much brighter. Gwaine hasn’t seen anything like it in a very long time, not since he drunkenly staggered into a clearing full of magic and someone calling herself a high priestess told him in haughty tones to bugger off. The ball grows and grows and grows – vibrating and angry, full of clashes and jagged ripples of light, like Merlin has a whole storm in his hand. Gwaine realises that’s exactly what it is – and maybe Arthur does too because his eyes swell with fear and at his sides his hands ball.

‘Arthur? _Arthur_.’

Uther’s voice. On the bed, he clutches the blankets up into a terrified shield – feet scrabbling as he tries to squash himself into the wall. A scream rips from his mouth, decades of terror condensed into one, feral cry – and Arthur – so still and awed and shocked a second ago – becomes frantic action. He grabs Merlin by the shoulders, and hauls him to the door.

‘Get out, Merlin.’

‘Arthur – please, let me – ’

‘ _Out._ ’

The word reverberates all the way down the hall, and the gap Gwaine could see through disappears as Arthur shoves Merlin against it with a thud. Uther keeps screaming – the noise of it rising and falling like the wail of a bell, and just over it Arthur hisses:

‘Get out of Camelot. If you stay you make me a traitor, guilty of harbouring a sorcerer and violating one of the most fundamental laws of my own land. You are banished from Camelot, Merlin. You have until sunrise. Stay longer and you’ll burn, you hear?’

The door nearly wrenches off its hinges, flings open, and bangs. Merlin stumbles back through it, a jumble of elbows and shoulders, struggling to stay upright as Arthur shoves him away. He thumps into the wall, slumping halfway down with the force of it. Inside the room Uther carries on screaming and Arthur – tone stricken – tells him over and over that he’ll keep him safe, that no harm will come to him. Merlin scrambles up. His gaze eyes flickers to Gwaine, then Gaius – who barely got out of the way. Gaius goes to say something, but Merlin interrupts.

‘Sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he says, and then he’s striding down the hall, fast – his face fixed, like a statue, his jaw tight – his hands screwed up at his sides. 

Gaius hesitates, looks at Gwaine. He tries to think of something to say – some words of consolation or comfort – but the pain in Gaius’s eyes runs too deep. He saw a similar look when the men came to tell his mother she was being evicted, and the king her child’s father died for knew but didn’t care. _Some things_ , he thinks, _the shock of them is too fundamental to be alleviated by words_. Gwaine puts a hand on Gaius’s arm, then goes after Merlin.

By the time he catches him up, Merlin’s dropping down the stairs two at a time. Gwaine feels anger and magic radiating out of him like right now if he wanted, he could render the entire castle to rubble. He follows the bob of his head around the curve of the stone, past the torches casting unhappy shadows on the walls. His own head flashes with images of what happens next – Merlin maybe carrying on walking from here until Camelot is nothing but a spot – unspecific fields and trees surrounding him when he gets himself lost in the world – a tavern, maybe, where sorrows can be drowned and oaths to sod the place and Arthur and all of it can be made. 

Merlin crosses the courtyard, his feet thunking a familiar rhythm like soft summer rain. Gwaine stays half a step behind him – feeling like Merlin will shatter if he looks at him – not paying attention to where they’re heading until Merlin pushes his way into Gwaine’s room. Gwaine closes the door, thinking, _we’ll come up with something_. He’ll be reassuring and strong and dismissive enough about that stupid destiny thing that Merlin will laugh. 

‘Merl – ’

Merlin curtails him with a kiss, mouth open and demanding, fingers clenched tight in Gwaine’s clothes. He ignores Gwaine’s shocked lack of response and keeps on kissing him – harder and harder – his hands working their way down over sternum and ribs and stomach until they’re rubbing at his cock like it’s a race to see how quickly he can make him hard. Gwaine pulls away, mouth forming around a _what are you doing_ – but Merlin’s body presses against him, making it obvious. He flaunts what he knows of what Gwaine likes – a hand in his hair, tugging his neck taut, a knead of teeth on muscle, soothing the sparks of pain from both with a rough press of his tongue. The feeling culminates in Gwaine’s knees, travels up to the pit of his stomach, then his cock, his breath hot and ragged as Merlin’s lips move to his ear.

‘Make it go away,’ he says, fingers on Gwaine’s face, digging a plea into his jaw. ‘I can’t – make it go away just for a moment – _please_ –’

Merlin looks at him, then. His chin trembles and his eyes are wet and he looks at once impossibly vulnerable and iron of will. Merlin kisses him again – a little exploratory peck – and the delicate desperation of it – the thought of being _needed_ – Gwaine couldn’t deny him, even if he wanted to. He takes Merlin’s hip, pulls them flush together. Merlin gives out a grateful breath as they connect everywhere at once – stomach and chest and mouth and cock – hands at the back of each other’s necks. Whatever it was before quickly descends to frenzy – both of them searching for something which isn’t here, hiding the lack of it with harsh kisses, Merlin biting his lip like he’s trying to goad him, Gwaine snarling a reply back against his mouth, chastising him for rushing with his tongue even as that urges them both on. 

Gwaine’s shoulders fall against the door with enough force to jolt the breath half out of him, but Merlin doesn’t stop, claims his mouth again, his tongue frantic while his fingers work to unfasten their breeches and hastily shove them down. Skin-on-skin brings a flash of new urgency – Merlin’s hips working to drag their cocks together, and the thrill of it burgeons, undeniable, because it’s new, the way they feel stripped of everything but its viscera. Gwaine pants against Merlin’s open mouth thinking, _yes, perfect_ , but Merlin sinks to his knees. His mouth fits – tight and oh-so-fucking hot – to Gwaine’s cock. He makes a couple of passes up and down and up again – none of his usual coyness and teasing – rough and all hard purpose as he takes him deeper and deeper and deeper. Gwaine’s head bangs back against the wood but he barely registers it as feeling and not just noise. He hangs onto Merlin’s hair and stares at the ceiling until his eyelids demand to close, too dizzied with sensation to keep looking at the world.

The shake of his knees brings him back to reality, and he manages to get out the word _bed_. Merlin stands, wiping his mouth, shaking his head as he buries his face in Gwaine’s neck, litters the skin there with kisses – messy and wet and persuasive. 

‘Here.’ 

He drags Gwaine to him and after a quick kiss – loose with the flood of desire – turns, leaning on the door. He meets Gwaine’s eye over his shoulder – and it’s sort of a challenge but more of a please – and Gwaine can’t resist either, let alone the sight of his pale arse there and wanting beneath the shirt neither of them have thought to remove. He spits on his hand, works it into the crease, pressing his chest to Merlin’s back and feeling him gasp as fingers inch up inside him, breath catching as he sinks to draw them deeper. When Gwaine doesn’t do more than that Merlin glares at him – and Gwaine hears his own voice in his head say all the things he’d usually say, all the easy jokes and teases. They don’t fit here, though. Merlin’s fingernails dig into his hip and bring him closer as his mouth words what he wants as _now_. Gwaine wets his cock with saliva, pushes inside him, steadying his hips to keep Merlin from easing up onto his toes. Merlin’s body hitches and he hides his face in his forearm, pressing back a demand for Gwaine to move, leaving half-moons on his thigh. 

Gwaine gives him what he wants – one hand on his hip to pull him back onto his cock, the other over Merlin’s as he braces it on the wall. His toes curl and his jaw clenches, trying to hold something in. They’re not usually like this. They laugh and they snigger into each other’s mouths and when they kiss it’s mostly smiles finding the company of each other. He’s never been with anyone who smiles as much as Merlin, never met anyone who has so many different ones, each of them so different and so targeted of purpose: he has this short, coy one that just quirks the corner of his mouth; this big, toothy one he can’t contain; this lip-bitten, half one that comes with a sharp inhale and a flicker of his eyelids; this sleepy, lazy one when he makes himself a pillow of Gwaine’s shoulder or his chest; he probably has loads Gwaine hasn’t even seen yet. 

Gwaine buries his face in Merlin’s hair and drags in rough, heavy lungfuls of the smell of him as everything – his thoughts and the noise of their bodies and their breaths clears, and underneath it lies understanding of what this is, that they’re trying to keep each other from shattering because they’re both fractured by a hundred personal, private fears.

Merlin comes, his mouth open with a noise that’s half euphoric exultation, and half sob. It doesn’t take long – just a few more thrusts into the taut heat of Merlin’s body for Gwaine to follow, fingers stiff on Merlin’s stomach as they shudder to a halt. They collapse into achy still, breathing in time with each other, hot and dazed and sweaty and pressed into the door. 

Merlin turns, falls against the wall, and Gwaine tries to kiss the world all right again, but Merlin’s mouth slips away. His head slumps back, exposing the bob of his throat, and his eyes shudder closed, like it’s all flooding back too fast. He breathes heavily at the room, and all Gwaine can do is stand there and watch as inside his eyelids, Merlin falls apart.

‘Merlin?’ 

When he can’t stand the awful nothing any longer, Gwaine takes Merlin’s hand. It hangs limp, like he can’t even feel the touch. Gwaine’s throat knots. He’s seen it before, or something like it – warriors who walked like the living dead – people whose worlds had slipped from beneath them and left them a stranger in the place they once called home. Not Merlin. He won’t let that happen to Merlin. For want of better ideas he feeds Merlin’s limbs free of his remaining clothes, takes him over to the washstand and rinses away the day and the sex like he’s a handmaiden. Merlin doesn’t say anything – moves only when Gwaine touches him to guide him – his eyes glassy and focused on something which only exists in his head. Gwaine draws him over to the bed, herds him beneath the covers and slides in next to him, fitting them together, clinging to an echo of another blanket and another time he soothed, he thinks, just by being there. 

Gwaine presses their stomachs together and touches Merlin’s hair and his jaw and his neck – smoothing his skin like somehow that will help. Merlin doesn’t push him away, so Gwaine pulls the blankets up and finds the warm spot behind Merlin’s ear where his nose always fits.

‘What are you going to do?’ he says, so, so quiet, in case the words make him break. 

Merlin breathes hard through his nose. Gwaine remembers a woman he saw once on his travels, a woman whose sons had been killed right in front of her, a woman so distraught by being forced to exist that she hadn’t spoken in ten years. He shifts and arranges Merlin, closer to his chest, tucking him all up, him complying in the way a rag doll might. 

‘This is nothing,’ Gwaine says. ‘So you’re banished, so what? All the best people get banished from Camelot – it’s practically a rite of passage. Think of it like a holiday. Think of all the lie-ins – all the places you’ve only ever heard about. Maybe we can go somewhere you always wanted to – The Western Isles, I’ll get you good and drunk and – ’ 

Merlin flinches – tiny – but there.

‘Okay, I’ll shut up,’ Gwaine says. He reaches for Merlin’s hand, awkwardly slots their fingers together because Merlin’s are so tightly pinched – and squeezes. Merlin lets him do it but doesn’t join in, and Gwaine swallows. ‘Merlin, if you don’t want to talk that’s fine – really – but can you nod – just a little one – to let me know you’re all right in there? Otherwise I’m going to have to do something stupid like go and get Gaius and tell him to give you something for shock.’ 

Merlin’s chin shifts on his chest – it’s not a real nod but it’ll do. Gwaine brings their hands up to his lips, kisses each of Merlin’s knuckles in turn – a soft, noisy pull on each jut of bone. Then he strokes Merlin’s hand with his thumb, over and over and over, thinking, _I’m here I’m here I’m here_ , and knowing it’s not enough.

*

The dawn calls – as it often does – before Gwaine’s ready to meet it. Merlin hasn’t slept. Hasn’t spoken, either, and Gwaine doesn’t want to shift them into what happens next, but there’s no choice.

‘Sun’s coming. We’ve less than an hour.’ 

At first Merlin doesn’t move, then he fractionally shifts his elbow, like he’s unfurling after a fight and realising he’s alive. Slowly his head comes up, and he meets Gwaine’s eye. 

‘I think I have to go,’ he says. 

‘I’ll come with you. I would follow you until we both fall off the end of the earth, Merlin, you know it.’

Merlin smiles – a new one, barely a smile at all it’s so sad. There’s something frighteningly steady about him too, and he slips his fingers out from where they’ve spent the night with Gwaine’s, and touches his chin.

‘I don’t need your protection, Gwaine.’ 

‘I’m not denying you bring out my guard dog impulses, but – I’m not offering because I think you can’t take care of yourself. Camelot – ’ Gwaine thumbs the back of Merlin’s neck, his heart in his throat. ‘ – it’s nothing to me. Only reason I’m here is because it’s where you live.’ 

Merlin studies him, then presses their lips together, dry and hard.

‘Promise me something?’

‘Anything, Merlin. I’ll promise you anything you want.’ 

‘Promise you’ll stay here and protect Arthur like I would.’

‘What?’ Gwaine says, fingers stilling, everything behind his navel sinking like it’s disappeared. ‘Why would I swear to protect the man who banished you?’

‘Because I asked you to.’

Merlin’s eyelashes lift, and in the whole of his life Gwaine’s not sure he’s seen anyone look more certain of anything. Gwaine just stares at him.

‘Arthur – he’s the one who matters,’ Merlin says.

‘How can you say that?’ 

‘You don’t know him like I do. Yeah, he’s angry, but underneath he has a big heart – a heart he thinks is a weakness,’ Merlin says, tracing Gwaine’s bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, like they’re just lazy lovers mapping each other for the sake of it. ‘Uther is all he’s ever known – to him that’s what a king’s supposed to look like. He needs time to see he’ll be different and all the better for it – but I’m not sure he has time. Sooner or later Morgana will come for him. If she doesn’t kill him, she’ll turn him into Uther by showing him magic does nothing but corrupt and take the people he loves. Arthur’s only ever seen the dark face of magic. I was meant to be here to show him it’s lightness too but – I won’t be. He needs someone to keep him safe – from Morgana, from whoever and whatever tries to get in the way of him meeting his destiny.’

‘There must be someone else. Lancelot – ’

‘Would die for him without hesitation, but he’s not right for this.’

‘Leon, then.’

‘Likewise. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.’

Merlin’s gaze turns imploring, and in it there’s a flicker of the time he found Gwaine sliding across a bar and asked for his help in the Perilous Lands. Then, rashly Gwaine had thought there was nothing he wouldn’t do for Merlin, and when Arthur’s sword alighted on his shoulders weeks later and Merlin looked at him, fond and proud, he’d made a kind of bargain to that effect in his head, _whatever he asks of you, you give him. You owe him for being the only person who ever looked at you like that_. Gwaine glances at the wall, where the daylight’s getting stronger as night recedes, and he thinks, _but this? This I so much more than I thought he’d ask for. Why is there always so little time for the big decisions?_

‘Say I promise,’ Gwaine says, ‘last night, you said people – people you loved – had died for precisely this cause, for your faith in Arthur.’

Merlin smiles, and meets Gwaine’s eye with some measure of his old teasing.

‘Well then you’re fine until I love you, aren’t you?’ he says.

Gwaine swallows the regret already pooling in his mouth, allows himself to falter into a glance at the ceiling. He wonders what Merlin said to the others he asked this of, but just like them, he can’t say no, and he thinks maybe that’s why time runs away from the big stuff, so all a person can do is dig the answer out of their guts.

‘I promise,’ Gwaine says. Merlin shifts, kissing his chest, murmuring to his skin. Gwaine runs a hand over his head – already missing him – lifts him up so he can try and remember every detail of his face. ‘What will you do? Where will you go?’

‘I know a dragon. The last dragon. I think maybe it’s time he met my mother. We’ll take her somewhere safe in case Arthur hunts for me.’

Gwaine wants to ask a hundred questions – starting with _a dragon? How can you know a dragon?_ – but instead he says:

‘Tell me where you’re going and I’ll keep everyone away.’ 

He traces the back of Merlin’s neck with his fingers, chastising himself for never properly kissing him there, for not teaching that patch of skin where Merlin disappears beneath his hair to remember the shape and pressure of his mouth.

‘Have you already forgotten?’ Merlin says. ‘You protect _Arthur_ , not me. Whatever happens.’ 

‘Merlin – ’

‘Promise is a promise, Gwaine.’ He softens his words with a smile. ‘Besides, dunno where we’re going yet.’

‘How will I ever find you again if all I have to go on is you’ve ridden off into the sunrise with your mother and a bloody dragon?’

Merlin tilts his chin up, leans in until they’re nose to nose.

‘Would you trust my magic?’ Merlin says. 

‘Of course I – ’

Merlin stills his lips with his finger. 

‘Really think before you say that. You’ve seen how very, very wrong I get it sometimes.’

‘I trust you more than anyone, Merlin. Magic and all.’

Merlin raises his fingers, mutters something, and touches them to the middle of Gwaine’s forehead. It’s barely pressure, but it turns into a trickle down to his bones, fills him with a pleasant, heavy, earth warmth, like he’s just woken up in front of a fire. Merlin smiles, lifts his fingers away. 

‘What was that?’ 

‘Something I’ve been desperate to try.’

‘You put a magical treasure map in my head or something?’ 

‘You’ll see when it’s the right time.’ 

‘If it doesn’t work I’ll just look out for the dragon,’ Gwaine says, words running away too fast, just because soon they’ll have said everything they have time to say. ‘He’ll be pretty easy to spot, especially when he’s wearing the hat your mum’s knitted for him in the intervening.’

‘How’d you know my mother knits when you’ve never met her?’

‘After I got stung I stole – I say stole, I mean borrowed – some of your socks. They were far too cosy to be bought – definitely knitted by someone who loves you and the only yarn that interests Gaius is the kind I tell him when I’ve had too many.’ 

Merlin laughs, and Gwaine strokes his hair, insides tumbling – maybe with magic, and maybe not at all. Maybe with what’s about to come.

‘How’s it feel?’ Merlin says, indicating his forehead. ‘My magic? I can’t tell – it’s always been a part of me and I wondered – ’

‘It feels like you. Like melted you.’

The answer pleases Merlin’s mouth enough to earn Gwaine a kiss, Merlin’s lips closing on his in a gentle tug. It snares all of him and presses tight, and he clings to Merlin, wrapping his arms around him, the full weight of what he’s agreed to racing over him and making him think something ludicrous about if they just stay right here they can stop time and Merlin never has to go. Merlin pulls away, drops their foreheads together.

‘I can’t believe I just agreed to stay here without you,’ Gwaine whispers.

‘You always do what your heart tells you is right.’

‘I hate my heart. And this destiny thing of yours.’

‘No you don’t,’ Merlin says, and kisses him again, soft and sound, like that way he won’t be able to feel the goodbye in it.

*

Autumn breathes a ripple through the grass, the sun gifting warmth to the air, and as he stands on the edge of the training ground, Gwaine scans the sky. Thin clouds streak the blueness, and – as has become his custom – he finds a bird skimming the horizon, and pretends it’s Merlin on the back of a dragon.

‘Sir Gwaine, if you’d be so kind as to pay attention,’ Arthur says.

Gwaine squints the brightness ghosts from his eyes until he can make out Arthur’s nose. How quickly everything has resumed its normality. At first there’d been mutters about where Merlin had disappeared to, rumours of him being banished for using magic, the usual chuntering behind hands about _who’d have thought and you know I always said there was something off about him_. Some people – like Lancelot – have been avoiding his name, hiding their thoughts behind a soft, sad smile, others loudly disparaging Merlin and sorcery when Arthur’s in ear shot, trying to gain his favour. Maybe three weeks the lack of Merlin burbled on everyone’s lips, but now here they all are in their armour teaching the new recruits, some lad with wide brown eyes and a cowlick sitting in Merlin’s place like Merlin was never there. 

Inside the castle it’s different. The king – still mad but having inched back from death – remembers, asks about _the boy, the boy with the neckerchief, the one who could hold a thunder cloud_ , and Gwaine has seen Gaius lie to him, soothe his mind with potions, assure the king as he sinks into a false sleep that the boy is far, far away and never coming back, even though every word pinches on his brow. Gwaine doesn’t know how Arthur isn’t ripped apart like Gaius with missing Merlin, having known him so well and so long, but there he is, cracking jokes and goading and acting like nothing has gone missing from the world. 

‘And still you daydream,’ Arthur says.

‘Say something interesting and I assure you I’ll be all ears,’ Gwaine says.

‘We’re supposed to be teaching the recruits how to fight.’

‘Can’t teach a man to fight. Either he’s a fighter or he’s not. Rest’s just trial and painful error.’

‘Then I’m sorry we’re wasting your valuable time. Perhaps you’d rather relieve Sir Leon of his watch? I believe he only has seven hours to go.’

‘If it means I don’t have to listen to you talk shite, yeah, I would.’

Gwaine strides away, Arthur’s resulting scowl and the awkward shuffling of his devoted little crowd making him feel better than he has done all day.

Leon’s at the main gate, monitoring the guards as they stare at the surroundings, checking each twitch of the trees and every clop of a horse they report as suspicious, his head high and noble like a man glad to be moving within the purpose of his life.

‘I’m here to take over,’ Gwaine says. 

‘One day Arthur’ll stop finding your insubordination amusing, you know,’ Leon says.

‘And what a glorious day that will be when it comes.’

Leon sighs, and hands him the scroll, the movement of the guards etched in familiar scrawl. Gwaine gives it a cursory glance, and Leon goes off, looking back like he doesn’t quite trust Gwaine not to let the guard go on an excursion to the tavern. He’s partially right. Gwaine doesn’t care when the guards slack off and play dice. Watching the boundary himself gives him something to do with his mind. Often he wishes something would happen with Morgana’s supposed plot – something big and grand and catastrophic, something to make his muscles scream and his brain spring forth with the urge – always unbidden and a bit unexpected – to keep himself alive.

When his shift is over, he hauls himself to Gaius’s. Finding him not there he sighs, follows the path of the stairs up to the king’s chamber, and knocks on the door. Gaius answers, and Gwaine checks the room – the king mumbling in the bed, Arthur’s chair empty.

‘Any news?’ Gwaine says.

‘Alas not. I had hoped he’d send word he’s safe.’

‘Maybe he’s having too much fun, eh?’

‘Indeed.’

They smile at each other, and leave the platitudes about no news and good news for tomorrow, like always. Uther groans, and Gaius glances to the bed.

‘I should get back.’

‘Brows to mop, tyrants to soothe.’ 

Gwaine turns back into the hall, and meets Arthur, square of shoulder and hard of face. He pushes past him, but Arthur catches his arm, digging his fingers into Gwaine’s elbow.

‘How long?’ Arthur says. ‘How long are you going to play this ridiculous game in training?’

‘It’s not a game,’ Gwaine says, and drags his arm free. He mutters a sarcastic _your highness_ just to piss him off, and stalks to the tavern to drown what little remains of the day. 

He succeeds in his endeavour, but a new one dawns, anyway.

Above the training field the sky rolls, a hazier, colder blue. Arthur paces in front of the small knot of wood-be knights, all puffed up inside their armour like they’re going to show the world something it’s never seen before with nothing to power them but sinew and some instructed fight techniques. They’re young, small, and eager to please, little dogs Arthur can train to fall on swords for him, and Gwaine’s not sure whether it’s them or Arthur he hates more.

Gwaine picks out a bird, watches as it arcs and swoops. _Hang on tight, Merlin_ , he thinks. _Don’t you dare fall off, now_.

‘Gwaine.’

‘What?’

‘I believe you know a thing or two about close combat.’

‘More than you, I fancy.’

‘Then perhaps you’d favour us with a demonstration.’

Arthur tosses his helmet onto the grass, and beckons him forward. Gwaine shakes his head at Arthur’s obviousness, but complies anyway, because there’s no denying a chance to hit Arthur in the face in front of everyone without landing himself in a cell would perk his week right up. 

Arthur crooks his fingers into a _come on_. Gwaine saunters over – and then grabs a sword from the display without warning and swings it at Arthur. Arthur’s eyes startle – and for just a second Gwaine thinks he might actually take his head off – but Arthur dodges the blow and rounds for more as the sword swishes through the air. _Fair enough_ , Gwaine thinks, _if you’re awake let’s not play_ , and swipes at him again, the end of his sword grazing the chainmail over his stomach with a pleasing grate. Arthur glowers, and Gwaine grins back, the spit on his teeth metallic. 

In any demonstration they’re supposed to take it slow, let the would-be knights see it all like it’s a dance, but while Arthur breaks into his little pattern of footwork Gwaine lashes out, blade singing on the air. Arthur outruns it, nipping just inside its reach – and Gwaine knows what he’s supposed to do is let Arthur hit him to demonstrate that this close, one quick, decisive blow to the underside of the jaw can knock a man down or out. Gwaine barges him with his shoulder instead. Arthur staggers, winded, and Gwaine hunkers down, bringing his sword up so the tip points right at his throat. Arthur breathes heavy with frustration and irritation, eyes trained on Gwaine like he can run him through with his gaze.

‘Sorry,’ Gwaine says. ‘Was I supposed to make it easy for you?’

‘I don’t need you to make it easy for me.’

Arthur charges, and Gwaine dodges and whacks him hard on the arm – ramming the heel of his sword right into the muscle. It’ll bruise, and every time his chainmail presses it’ll hurt like a bastard for weeks, and the look in Arthur’s eyes as he pretends he didn’t feel it says they both know it. Arthur charges again – faster – digging up ridges of earth, and collides with Gwaine’s chest. Gwaine could probably haul him off but instead he goes with it, and they both land on the grass – a tangle of misplaced punches and scrabbling legs, the would-be knights around them shifting like they’re not sure if they’re supposed to be watching. 

They tussle like drunks falling out of a bar – Gwaine gives up on his sword and shoves his hand into Arthur’s face, squashing his nose, spit hot on his palm. Arthur actually bites his thumb, then digs an elbow into his throat like he means for Gwaine to suffocate. Gwaine brings his knee up sharply between Arthur’s legs, and Arthur buckles – hard and fast – forehead making sharp, thick contact with Gwaine’s nose. Through the flood of bitterness and metal, pain sparks blackness right behind Gwaine’s eyes. He shoves Arthur – collapsed and whimpering – off him roughly, struggles out from underneath, and staggers to his feet. He puts his thumb – which has red indents making a perfect horseshoe in it – to his nose, unsurprised when it comes back bloody. Arthur follows him up, legs wonky and his expression affronted and pink.

‘What was that?’ he says.

‘Were you expecting I’d bring you flowers first?’

‘I was expecting you’d at least show me the respect of fighting like a knight.’

‘You’re the one who bit me.’

‘What was I supposed to do when your hand was in my mouth?’

Arthur steadies himself on a target, leaning on it heavily, and Gwaine wants to kick it away so he lands with his face in the dirt. 

‘I’m done for the day,’ Gwaine says, and turns to go, swinging to pick up his sword.

‘What’s the matter, Gwaine? Are you sulking because you lost your playmate or you were going to lose the fight?’

Gwaine whips round, grabs a fistful of Arthur’s chainmail, and wrenches him in, the links biting against his fingers as he twists. 

‘Talk to me about Merlin again, and I will forget completely that you’re a prince, stop playing nice, and give you the kicking you deserve.’

Arthur struggles, fingers digging into Gwaine’s, but other hands fasten under Gwaine’s armpits and elbows and haul him off. He thinks about charging Arthur, knocking the arrogant sod on his arse, but instead he wipes at his nose, turns and walks away. Arthur sneers a laugh. 

‘Run off to the tavern, then,’ he says, and Gwaine flips him a one-fingered reply.

The wind whispers scandalised on the grass, and over it Gwaine hears Arthur send his new servant off to fetch him some water. _Tavern_ , he thinks, _not a bad idea_. He spits on his sleeve to wipe the blood from his face – a token gesture of respectability – and pictures all the things he could have done to Arthur if they hadn’t been surrounded by his devoted little brood.

The Rising Sun’s sign squeaks a welcome, but Gwaine hesitates on the threshold. He eyes the horizon – or what he can see of it at the end of the street – thoughts of Merlin invading, thoughts of him out there somewhere. Wouldn’t he rather be somewhere with Merlin than here?

The town bustles with late afternoon activity, chickens scurrying about trying not to become dinner, the guy who sells the vegetables croaking out prices of bargains, last chance today. Gwaine passes it all without looking, keeps on walking and walking and walking until the noise of the people disappears, replaced by the gentle whooshing waft of sun-dry wheat in the fields. He strides through it, letting it prickle at his hands – liking the pressure behind his nose and the pain in his head – letting it blind him to where he is and where he’s going. He draws up a stalk, tries to remember how Merlin knotted it, then just wraps it around his finger and tucks the bristly end into his palm.

He’s half way across the field – probably about where they sat the night Merlin decided to tell Arthur the truth – when he feels a jolt behind his bellybutton. He thinks of what he had for breakfast – but it wasn’t anything unusual – looks about. There’s no-one and nothing there. He takes another step, and then he hears it:

 _You promised._

The voice wafts soft and amused into his thoughts, like Merlin’s on the pillow next to him and whispering something stupid to make him smile at the night. Gwaine looks around again, and disappointment curdles his stomach when he realises the voice is in his head, just above his eyebrows, and maybe not even Merlin’s at all, just his own thoughts, pretending.

Regardless, he did promise.

 _Hell_ , he thinks. Whatever he’s done with his life, however reckless and roguish he’s been, he’s never broken a promise, let alone one which means what this one means to Merlin. He casts a look at the wood and the sky beckoning the way towards Mercia. _If there’s a bird_ , he thinks, _a bird that’s maybe not a bird, a bird that’s maybe – just maybe – a dragon with Merlin on his back, that makes it a sign, a sign that it’s Ok to carry on and leave Camelot and your promise behind_. 

He waits almost ten minutes, but the only birds are definitely birds and singing about sunset to the trees.

Gwaine brushes at the wheat as he turns and walks back to the castle and Arthur and all of it, wrapping himself in the lack of Merlin which loiters in every breath. 

When he at last reaches the courtyard, it welcomes him with quiet still. He checks on Gaius – _no, I’ve heard nothing – he’s still having too much fun to bother about us, eh? – is your nose quite all right? – nothing a nice cold ale won’t fix_ – then rids himself of the chainmail and the crests and everything about him which isn’t strictly his before ending up at the tavern. He finds a table – a shonky thing propped up with a lump of gods know what – orders a large tankard of mead and drinks half of it in one go. The one-eyed stable hand stumbles in with his lute and sets up in the corner. He asks for requests, and Gwaine tells him, _something with an unhappy ending_ , gets a nod as he strikes up a chord. 

He’s halfway through a ballad about a woman who drowned herself when the door opens. A tall silhouette stops there for a minute, then turns into Leon as it comes closer.

‘I thought you’d be here,’ he says, and without waiting for an invitation he sits opposite.

‘Great,’ Gwaine says. ‘On top of everything I’ve become predictable.’

The barmaid comes over, swinging her hips for their benefit and leaning lower than necessary to give them both an eyeful of her more than adequate cleavage. 

‘What can I get you then, sweetheart?’ she says, voice brash and jagged but thinking it’s sweet, like honeycomb.

‘Tankard of mead, please.’

‘Anything for you, cock?’

‘Make it two,’ Gwaine says. ‘And are there any pickled eggs?’

She sashays away to the bar, where the landlord eyes them through a squint as if at any moment they might break into song. Gwaine hides behind swilling drink into his mouth, even though it’s not helping and hasn’t for weeks. 

‘You know,’ Gwaine says, setting the tankard on the wood and staring at it, ‘I think I might be too miserable to get drunk.’

‘Then why did you order another?’

‘I live in hope.’

Across the bar the barmaid noisily opens a jar where blank white ovals bob in brown liquid, and grins at him. Gwaine offers her a faint smile by return, then lets his hair curtain her from view.

‘I heard about the – um – thing with Arthur.’

‘Grand.’

‘How’s your nose?’

‘How’s it look?’

‘Fine.’

‘Then it’s fine.’

Gwaine swigs his drink, and Leon eyes him like he’s being difficult.

‘We all trusted Merlin,’ Leon says. ‘You’re not alone in feeling betrayed.’

‘Merlin betrayed no-one.’

Leon’s eyebrows inch up, but he waits for the barmaid to set the tankards and the pickled eggs down with a coquettish wink and go back to the bar. Gwaine picks up an egg, stares at it, asking its white, shiny face questions about love and misery in his head, before chucking it in the air and catching it in his mouth. He bites it in two, sighs as his mouth fills with vinegar and egg.

‘Seriously?’ Leon says, his expression horrified.

‘What? They’re nice.’

‘I – about _Merlin_.’ 

‘Oh.’

‘How can you trust him?’ Leon says, casts a gaze around, then leans across the table, and lowers his voice. ‘You know what Merlin is.’

‘Matters far less than me knowing _who_ Merlin is,’ Gwaine says. ‘Give Merlin a sword, what’d he do with it?’

‘Assuming he knows which end to hold, you mean?’

Gwaine rolls his eyes. 

‘Does he use it in anger to slay anyone he wants? Does he point it at someone who doesn’t deserve it? His magic isn’t any different to a blade. It’s a weapon like any other – having it in your hand makes you neither good or bad. Those are things you choose to be, irrespective of what weapon you’re holding and what skill you have to wield it.’

‘He did nearly kill the king,’ Leon says. 

‘Who’d’ve missed him?’

Leon tuts into his mead, but when his eyes lift there’s half a smile he’d never admit in them.

‘You’ve lived your whole life in Camelot?’ Gwaine says.

‘My family have been here since before Uther’s reign.’

‘Thought so. Out in the world things are different. Some places, Merlin would be the one treated like a king – but he’s never sought them out. He’s stayed in the one place that’s the most dangerous for him because it’s where he’s needed.’ 

‘A compulsion you understand?’

‘Something like that.’

Gwaine sips his mead, offers Leon a pickled egg. Leon lifts his hand to decline, strokes his beard as the one-eyed stable hand starts on a new verse about how the wail of the poor drowned girl’s mother echoed through the mountains and made a stream cry in sympathy. 

‘Did I ever tell you the story,’ Gwaine says, ‘about the time I was riding through the Forest of Ascetir and came upon a druid dwelling?’

‘Hard to say,’ Leon murmurs. ‘I don’t usually listen to your stories – not since that one about the time you accidentally drank frogspawn.’

‘In that case, this one time I was riding through the Forest of Ascetir, and I came upon a druid dwelling, only the whole place was deserted. I feared they’d been attacked, maybe even slaughtered by you lot – but the camp seemed fine, like they were all just out. Curiosity got the better of me, so I searched for them. Eventually I found them in a clearing – balls of light in the trees – all different colours. Some of them were singing – laughing – one of them – this tall guy with grey hair all shaggy like he’d never heard of a comb – saw me. And he should have been suspicious but he just invited me to join them, told me it was his birthday. There were children everywhere – I asked which ones were his and he said none of them – he called them refugees, children born with magic whose parents had sent them away because they couldn’t stay in Camelot. They’d set the whole thing up for him – a thank you, for sharing his gift with them and teaching them their magic should always bring light and laughter to the world. Confused him. _What have these children been told_ , he said, _to make them think their magic would ever do anything else?_ ’ 

‘I have no problem with druids,’ Leon says. ‘I owe them my life. Sorcerers, though – ’

‘I’ve heard the stories – even where I’m from Uther’s words carry on the wind. But – did you never wonder whether everything you think you know about magic is wrong? Any one of hundreds of sorcerers could probably kill Uther – and yet they haven’t, and those who’ve tried have been thwarted.’ 

‘Because we’re vigilant.’

‘You really think that’s the reason? You don’t think you ever had... help? Did you never notice Merlin has this way of always being there when something lucky happens?’

Leon presses his lips together and looks about the bar, as if he’s half expecting the wrong answer will see him dragged out and hanged for treason. 

‘Just think about it,’ Gwaine says. ‘Merlin – he could have killed Uther hundreds of times over if it had truly been his intention to cause him harm. Same goes for Arthur and the rest of us if he’d a mind to hurt us.’ 

‘Perhaps. He always seemed decent enough.’

‘I don’t think I really understood magic until I met Merlin. He showed me that if you live with magic that’s all you do – you live with magic. You take what the fates throw at you and you make mistakes – just like anyone else – and you do what you do and are who you are and it doesn’t make any difference at all to the way you choose to be. Good and not, they’re not defined by whether you have magic, any more than your ability to be a noble man is defined by who your father is.’

‘You miss him. Merlin.’

Gwaine scratches at his eyebrow, and reaches for another pickled egg. 

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’d grown accustomed to not being alone. I’m sure I’ll remember how to wear it again before too long.’

An hour later, fuzzier of vision but still alarmingly sober of thought, Gwaine stands at the bar. The woman with the ample cleavage sidles over, asks what he wants, twirling a strand of orange hair around her finger. 

‘Couple more meads, I think.’

‘Sure your friend can handle it?’ she says, jerking her head at their table, where Leon is doodling in a pool of pickled egg vinegar and muttering to himself, his nose so low it’s touching the wood.

‘If he can’t, you have my word I’ll carry him home rather than leaving him cluttering the premises.’

She quirks an eyebrow, reaches for the tankards.

‘You’re not your usual self tonight,’ she says. 

‘Having an off day. Someone nearly broke my nose. S’it make me look rakish?’

She tilts her head and considers him, and Gwaine turns to the side to give her a better look at his profile.

‘No more than usual,’ she says. ‘Why’d someone try and ruin your good looks, then?’

‘Lots of reasons. Mostly because I did something mean to his balls.’

She laughs – loud and dirty – and Gwaine thumbs his chin and tries to look contrite.

‘If he’s the one with injured knackers why’re you here doing the proverbial with your sorrows?’

‘Long story.’

‘Maybe you could tell it to me after we close? Don’t seem right to leave our best customer down in the dumps.’

She bites her lip and smiles around it. Gwaine can see it, how it’d happen – has done it enough times to know how it goes – a room upstairs, shabby, not much more to it than a bed and her clothes strewn everywhere. They’d talk a little – enough not to feel like strangers – before hitting the mattress like it’s a surprise, with him making her giggles turn ragged and breathy until there’s nothing in the world but the creak of the floorboards and the feel of her thighs around him. Maybe it would be nice. She’s pretty and curvy and friendly – and the thought inspires a faint prickle of wanting. But cad as he might have been in the past, he always extended everyone he shared a bed with the courtesy of knowing he wanted to be with them for them and them alone, not just because he fancied a distraction from the lack of someone else.

‘Well, that’s very kind,’ Gwaine says, ‘but I’d be lousy company tonight. You don’t need the likes of me ruining that lovely smile with my whinging.’ 

She slides the tankards back towards him, and when he reaches for his coins she shakes her head.

‘On the house for being charming.’

‘My friend might be interested,’ he says. ‘I can’t account for his technique but he has all his own teeth.’

She laughs and swats at his arm, and Gwaine returns to the table in somewhat better spirits than he left. Leon looks up with one lazy, drunken eye, the other hidden behind hair damp with pickled egg vinegar. 

‘Will I be returning to the castle alone?’ he says, enunciating each syllable far too deliberately.

‘Alas you’re stuck with me.’

‘What? She practically licked your face.’ 

‘Right enough, but someone needs to make sure you don’t fall into the moat and kill yourself.’

Leon _tsk_ s messily into his tankard and slurps up a mouthful of mead, letting it slip from his lip too soon and slopping some onto his arm. He brushes at it irritably, like he’s about to challenge it to a duel, and mumbles to himself before remembering Gwaine’s there and looking at him from behind his hair.

‘What is it with you?’ he says. ‘Everywhere you go – druids invite you to their parties and – girls – they – they – find you lickable and you can’t even be _bothered_ to lick them back. And Arthur – you’re – you show him no respect and you call him names and he _likes_ it. And I – I just – I do all the right things and – no-one ever wants to lick me. Or like me. I even had to sing to Percival and Elyan. I don’t even get one special person – I’m just part of the _group_ – do you have any idea how demoralising – ’ The one-eyed stable hand warbles to the end of his song, and Leon breaks off to clap politely. ‘What was I saying? Oh yeah – you’re – a great big barrel of _unfair_ is what it is.’

‘You’re five times the man I am,’ Gwaine says, ruffling his hair. ‘And you’re not just part of the group, you’re – the reason people want to group. Camelot would be lost without you, Leon.’ 

Leon sighs out dejected, drunken despair.

‘And now you’re being nice so I can’t even hate you. Gods, I _hate_ you,’ Leon says, before taking a great big slurp and rolling his eyes. Then he stiffens, and points at Gwaine with his tankard. ‘And you know what? I _will_ have a pickled egg, and you’re going to pay for it.’

*

Gwaine wakes to the sound of a snore bouncing over the repetitive clang of metal on metal. He peers out from his pillow. Leon’s still where he left him – sprawled in the middle of the floor, face flat against the stone, a branch he insisted on severing from its tree because it looked like his mother clutched in his hand. Gwaine presses his nose gingerly, winking as a flash of pain riots over the bridge of it and into his eyes. _Not broken_ , he thinks, and groggy, he goes over to the washstand to throw cold water into his face.

Leon groans as Gwaine steps over him on his way to retrieve his shirt, shields his eyes with his arm as he rolls over. He glances at the branch with surprise, says, ‘Mother?’ and then drops it like it’s on fire when he sees Gwaine. 

‘Morning.’

Leon sniffs at his sleeve and recoils in horror.

‘Gods, what do I smell of?’ he says.

‘At a guess I’d say vinegar, mead, eggs and – well, sick.’

Leon groans again and covers his mouth like he might be on the verge of a repeat performance of his projectile vomiting ability, which he displayed to the _delight_ of the guards off the side of the draw bridge.

‘By the way,’ Gwaine says, ‘you can give me the money you owe me whenever.’

‘What?’

‘You lost a bet. I told you it was impossible for a man of your size to cartwheel while wearing a cloak but you wouldn’t have it. I think that’s what displeased the eggs you ate.’ 

‘I – I don’t remember,’ he says. 

‘Probably for the best.’

Leon stands up shakily, clutching for the edge of the bed like he’s terrified of being too far away from the floor. He grabs at his temple and one eye shudders closed.

‘My head is clanging,’ he says.

‘S’not your head. It’s the warning bell.’

‘Then why are we still – we should be – _shit_.’

Leon makes for the door like a new-born foal trying to hurry back to its mother, and in his haste weaves at least twice the actual distance. Gwaine catches him up and steers him into the corridor, where Lancelot’s emerging from his room, tousled of hair and alert of expression. He eyes Leon slowly, and Leon tries to straighten into his usual self and mutters something about getting a move on. 

‘Are you all right, Sir Leon?’ 

‘Think he ate a bad egg,’ Gwaine says.

‘And your – er – nose, Sir Gwaine? That suffered an egg-related mishap too?’

‘Something like that.’

They convene with Arthur in the council chamber – Gaius already there along with Arthur’s new servant – whose name Gwaine thinks might be Tom. He hovers at his elbow under a pile of scrolls, trying to juggle a quill. 

‘Put them on the table,’ Arthur says. ‘Do I have to instruct you to do every little thing?’ 

Tom does as he’s told, bows half a dozen apologies, each one making Arthur’s eyes widen further with irritation. Elyan and Percival duck in through the door, looking far more perky than they’ve right to this early in the morning.

‘The gates are secure, sire,’ Elyan says, ‘and the lookouts are posted. The warning bell should be – ’ The bell falls silent, and Elyan smiles. ‘There, as I was saying – quieting any moment.’

Arthur nods, and faces the group, his hands on his hips.

‘We’ve had a report that Merlin has been sighted consorting with Morgana,’ Arthur says. He spreads a map out on the table, and taps at a spot to the north of the city. ‘They were spotted here by a man collecting firewood. He reports that he couldn’t get close enough to overhear what they were discussing but that they looked _friendly_. Needless to say, this could be a very dangerous magical alliance. Merlin – ’

‘Would never betray you like that,’ Gwaine says. ‘Whether he’s here or not, Camelot is in Merlin’s heart.’

‘If I wanted poetry I’d send for a minstrel,’ Arthur says, and he eyes Gwaine as if his balls are still aching and he’s holding a grudge. 

Gwaine steps forward anyway, looking for an ally in Leon, then Gaius. 

‘A man doesn’t attack his home – the place where the people he calls friends still live. If he is meeting with Morgana, it’s for some reason other than to form a league against Camelot.’ 

‘He’s right, sire,’ Gaius says. ‘I don’t believe Merlin is capable of such a thing. He’s always been a friend to you, to everyone here.’

‘Your affection for him is noted, but how often have we seen that magic changes and corrupts people, Gaius?’ Arthur says. 

‘If I might,’ Lancelot says, edging in, his head tilted deferentially, even though he doesn’t meet Arthur’s eyes, ‘our contacts in the other kingdoms have reported plenty of sightings of Morgana recently, but none of them have mentioned her finding a new ally in Merlin – or anyone. In fact, they report her being increasingly cold and suspicious, that she trusts no-one but her sister. Any kind of alliance with Merlin would be inconsistent with everything we’ve heard.’

‘Be that as it may, send a scouting party,’ Arthur says. ‘If you find them they must be treated as any other traitors would and brought here to face trial. Get to it.’

Gaius backs out with Percival and Elyan, his hands tucked together in a wordless prayer for Merlin not to be found. Leon and Lancelot loiter at the door, trying to hurry Gwaine on with a jerk of their heads, but Gwaine stays where he is until Arthur notices and waves a _what?_ at him.

‘You think magic is the corrupting force? From where I’m standing it seems fear of magic corrupts far more.’ 

‘Is that so?’ Arthur says, eyes narrow. 

‘Look what it did to your father. Once he was the king people spoke of with awe and respect – the mighty Uther Pendragon, who raised a kingdom out of the dirt with nothing much beyond the force of his words and the way they inspired his people. And then what did he do? He got scared and he took those same gifts and used them to terrify his subjects, made them turn on their friends and their neighbours. That’s corruption. Should’ve known you wouldn’t be any better.’

‘You think yourself privy to my thoughts?’ Arthur says.

‘I’m privy to your actions. You’re going to deal with Merlin like your father would, thinking it proves something about your worth as a king. Only to do that you’ve had to conveniently forget who Merlin is.’

‘He _was_ my servant.’

‘Wasn’t he just. Merlin served you far beyond the bounds of any duty, and all you can do is think him a traitor.’

Arthur pinches his brow, and looks at Gwaine with weary displeasure.

‘What do you think the people would think,’ he says, ‘if there was a rumour of Merlin plotting against Camelot – plotting with a known and dangerous enemy – and I did nothing?’

‘Maybe they’d think you had brains enough and guts enough to trust a friend.’

‘More likely they’d think me unfit to rule because I let my personal feelings cloud my judgement. You’re talking about things you don’t understand.’

‘No, you are. If Merlin’s right about all the destiny stuff, then you’re doing nothing but proving you’re unequal to ride out and meet it with him. I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty head of yours but you’re acting like you’re scared, scared to step out of your father’s shadow and be your own man.’

‘Maybe all that’s going on in my head is what a fool I was to have a sorcerer in my household for years, unable to tell.’ 

‘You’re a fool all right, and there’s nothing more dangerous than a fool with a crown.’

‘That’ll be all, Gwaine.’

Arthur’s voice echoes on the floor. He adds a glare, in which the words _don’t mess with me today_ pulse. Gwaine eyes the door. Lancelot meets his gaze, cocks his head, brow worry-wrinkled in a _seriously, Gwaine. Don’t._ Gwaine takes a step towards the corridor, then stops, thinking he’s so far over the mark he might as well just keep going, because some things just need saying. He strides up to Arthur – close enough to smell the sourness of morning on his breath. In the doorway Leon tenses into a metallic shift, and Arthur masks surprise with forced indignation, nostrils flaring.

‘No, it won’t, actually,’ Gwaine says. ‘Whatever wrongs Merlin did, at least he acted like a man. He could have let you tear the kingdom apart looking for him. He could have let you see guilt in people who weren’t guilty in order to hide behind it. Hell, if he’d wanted to, he probably could have fixed your mind to his liking and made you forget everything you saw. He didn’t – because he had faith in you to be a man too.’ 

‘And you think I don’t know how? I’ve been king in all but name for months.’

‘What do you think your father’s lesson was when he taught you you’re entitled to have people kneel at your feet? It was nothing to do with being a man and everything to do with turning you into his idea of a leader. His inculcations taught you to choose like a tyrant and kid yourself it’s for the best, that hard decisions and harsh decisions are the same thing. They’re not. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to show someone kindness and trust.’

Arthur shakes his head, but it doesn’t take, and for just a second he looks small and fragile, a boy lost in the woods who doesn’t know whether to call for help or if that’d bring him more quickly to harm. 

‘A kingdom needs only one thing, Arthur, a leader who bases their decisions on what their heart tells them is right – not one who’s always thinking of expectation or perception, or what his father would do.’ 

‘You hear about that in a song in a tavern?’ 

‘Have Geoffrey look me up, if you want,’ Gwaine says. ‘Validate my opinion with my family tree like your father would. Just know – when those of us who swore to follow you did so, we thought we were following Arthur. Be Arthur. You know who Merlin is – maybe you know him better than anyone – and you must have an answer for why – time after time – he threw himself into fights that weren’t his, stood beside you without even a sword to hold.’ Arthur looks at him, head on one side like he’s debating saying something about Merlin being an idiot. ‘Don’t turn into someone who’s too scared to do what’s in his heart because he knows his daddy would disapprove. When there’s something that everyone tells you is stupid and dangerous, something that scares you right down to your bones – when you can run into that because you have faith in yourself to be right, that’s when you know you’re a man. And that’s when you’re ready to be a king. _That’s_ all.’

Gwaine dips his head and ducks out. And as he passes, Leon looks at him like he doesn’t know whether to head butt him, or applaud.

*

Gwaine tries to skip taking part in the scouting group, thinking to ride out himself and warn Merlin – but Leon grabs him by his collar and drags him to the courtyard, muttering about getting him away from Arthur before he ends up with his neck on a block. They set out under a heavy, darkening sky – the clop of the horses muffling as rain begins to fall – and leave the castle’s grounds at a canter, heading for the open land between them and the Darkling Woods. There, the rain turns the size and weight of eggs, and the tall pines of the forest list in the wind like they’re drunk. Gwaine squints at the horizon, cold rain stinging his face, ducking under his arm to try and catch the first sight of a familiar flash of red and blue, even though he can barely make out Lancelot, mere feet in front of him. They push on, horses staggering clumsily in the mud as the storm refuses to abate, the wind turning shrill as it races up to meet them.

‘You two check over there,’ Leon shouts, arm buffeting on the wind as he points to a copse.

Gwaine tugs his horse towards the small coven of birches, Lancelot following. At first Gwaine thinks the trees have nothing to tell, but then he spots a frayed circle of charred, black trunk. He slides off his mount, catching the reins, and trudges over, the mud eating his feet and sucking him down. Lancelot drops beside him, pushing his sopping hair out of his eyes, fingering the mark, charcoal washing away on his fingers.

‘Burnt.’ 

Gwaine looks around at the others, but the bark wraps around their trunks untouched and untroubled.

‘Sir Gwaine?’ Lancelot says, and points at the ground.

Mud and grass lies churned, the water pooling in obvious step marks – some hoof, fewer foot, one set larger than the other. Gwaine ducks down, trying to discern what the pattern of pocking means. 

‘What’s that look like to you?’

‘Dozen horses,’ Lancelot says. ‘A man, and a woman – circling?’

‘Looks like the horses cantered in full-pelt, and then what – just came to rest?’

‘There was no mention of Morgana having riders so wild horses, perhaps?’

Gwaine murmurs, and something else irregular catches his eye – another scorch mark on a boulder. He kneels against it, trousers sticking to him everywhere, and fingers it, the smudge coming away with a light touch as the rain pours down. 

‘Lightning would have just struck the trees,’ he says, and even as he’s finishing the thought the sky splits with thunder right above them – rain punishing the ground with a fresh barrage, the footsteps starting to cave in on themselves, obliterating bit by bit.

‘Something?’ Leon says, pulling up behind them, drenched and blinking. 

‘Not sure what, though,’ Gwaine says. ‘Tracks lead this way. Maybe we should follow them while we can.’

Leon nods, and Gwaine and Lancelot mount their horses again. The ground turns stonier – picks up another set of footprints, maybe – but they lose the trail entirely before they’ve gone very far at all. Leon shouts something about checking the wood itself, but a flash of lightning blares violet in the sky – and the horses rear, neighing. Gwaine clings on, using every muscle not to tip them backwards, and when they thunk back to earth with a little dance of protest, he rubs his horse’s neck, breathing hard.

‘Steady, there.’

Another strike crackles down – closer – blazing so bright he has to tuck himself into her neck to shield his eyes. The lightning hits a huge fir on the edge of the woods. Bright orange sparks fly off it – fizzing and cracking and shooting every way. With a cacophony of bark and sap the tree bursts in two, groaning as its branches slump into its neighbours. The horses stamp – impatient and frightened, their breath clouds and sweat white froth under their bridles – and thunder cracks right above like stone on stone, the rain intensifying until it almost dwarfs the sound. The air grumbles, and above clouds twist themselves into a knot of angry purple like a bruise. Leon hesitates, but a fresh crack of lightning hits the grass with a deafening whip crack and makes the decision for him. He gives the signal to ride for Camelot at haste.

When they get back the air hangs dark, everything turned to shadows while they were away. The wind howls around the turrets, makes whips out of their hair and their cloaks, and foreboding turns Gwaine’s stomach as he sees the guards unable to hurry as they might and unable to keep a proper watch on the walls. Thinking of his promise to Merlin – that wouldn’t it be just his luck if the scouting mission was a red herring so Morgana to get in to Arthur – Gwaine heads for the prince’s quarters, while Leon and Lancelot run for the gate, shouting orders to batten the castle down because there’s worse on the way. 

Quickly Gwaine knocks on the door, opening it even before Arthur shouts: 

‘Come.’ 

Arthur’s at the table, lunch he hasn’t touched arranged in front of him like a strange flower of plates and dishes while he signs papers with a scratchy quill. Tom hovers at his side with a look that says he’s worried he’ll lose his head if Arthur doesn’t eat something, his fingers white on a jug, ready to pour, even though the goblet sits already full. A flash of lightning blazes and a gust batters the pane and makes the light of the candles flicker, and Arthur casts a glance at the view and then Gwaine and the puddle of rainwater he’s making.

‘You have something to say Sir Gwaine?’ he says. ‘Or did you just think the floor could do with a rinse?’

‘Just got back from investigating the sighting of Merlin and Morgana.’ 

‘That’ll be all, Tom,’ Arthur says.

‘But sire, you haven’t – ’

‘That’ll be all, Tom. I’m sure you said something about laundry.’

Tom hovers for a moment, and it isn’t until Arthur looks at him with a, _why are you still here?_ that he sets down the jug and bows his way out.

‘Didn’t want an audience?’ Gwaine says.

‘Not particularly. What did you find?’

‘Nothing that makes any sense. Someone was there – could have been Morgana and Merlin – as were horses – more than a dozen by our reckoning. We tried to track them but the storm drove us back.’

‘The man who made the sighting made no mention of horses. Are you sure they weren’t old tracks?’

‘I can tell the difference. Besides, weather like this – whoever it was had only just left,’ Gwaine says, gesturing to the window. ‘In addition, there was some scorching. Thought it might be lighting but – positioning was off. I’m no expert but they could easily have been evidence of a magical battle.’

Arthur strokes his jaw and lets out a long sigh.

‘Your conclusion?’

‘Best I’ve got here is that Morgana has a herd of invisible horses and maybe Merlin interrupted whatever she had planned for them. I’ve heard stories about fallen knights, spirit riders, blades and skills sharp, tangible enough to hurt you – and leave a hoof print, apparently, but feel like mist when you strike back. To be honest I thought they were just tales, the kind knights tell each other – part warning about what happens if you don’t keep your wits, part comfort that if you fall it’s not the end.’

‘It would be Morgana’s style, shall we say, to harness such a thing.’ 

‘Maybe she intended to have them make an assault on the castle – we’d have had no warning – especially in this weather, and is there any enemy it’s harder to defend against than one you can’t see until they’ve left a mark?’

‘Indeed. I’ll convene the council and inform them of your findings. Hopefully the storm has bought us enough time to prepare. Thank you, Gwaine.’

'It's Merlin you should be - ' 

‘About that,' Arthur says, lifting the thing he just finished signing off the table. 'I don’t owe you this, and it doesn’t mean anything – definitely not that you have a right to talk to me as you did, or that I _in any way_ care what you think, but – I thought perhaps it'd do your temper good to see.’

He hands Gwaine the paper. Gwaine unfurls it – edges sticking to his wet, crinkled fingertips. He reveals the Pendragon crest at the top and loopy handwriting decrying _Known Enemies of Camelot_ alongside the date. The list is split – criminals and sorcerers, Morgana’s name at the top, the punishment for her crimes listed alongside so they may be exacted upon capture, and at the bottom is Arthur’s signature and the words _by order of Prince Arthur_. Gwaine scans the list – twice – three times.

 

‘Merlin’s name’s not on it.’

‘No,’ Arthur says. ‘It’s not.’

*

Gwaine watches rain bounce off the courtyard while water gushes from the roof over the head of a gargoyle and splatters his just-changed clothes. The sky around and above the turrets undulates like a river, churns over clouds troubling its way like rocks, and the air breathes fresh and dense. Gwaine would think it pleasantly wild – a welcome reprieve from the usually sanitised citadel – were it not for the thought of ghostly horses pawing the ground outside, cold, knightly fingers clawing their way through the gate, and most especially Merlin – out there somewhere – on his own and maybe facing Morgana’s wrath.

Behind him a door opens, and out spill the court, dashing on their way to stay dry. Gwaine glances back as he hears Arthur’s familiar quick gait, and he looks at Gwaine, not particularly surprised to find him there, leaning on the wall. He dismisses Tom and the guard – telling them to accompany Leon as he renews their flood protections and prepares for a potential siege, and joins Gwaine just under the overhang. 

‘Odd things, aren’t they?’ Arthur says, gesturing to the statue. ‘Grotesque, in a way.’

‘Get someone to mason it a jester hat,’ Gwaine says. ‘That’d help.’

Arthur sniffs amusement, glances down the forlorn, empty corridor, where rainwater swills puddles onto the fine stone. 

‘If you’ve something to say,’ he says, quietly, ‘most likely this is your best chance. I’ll be tied up all day with flood preparations and trying to think of a way to stop Morgana and her band of invisible knights.’

‘Any ideas on that?’

‘Attempt to keep her out. If that fails, fight her, try not to die. The usual. Gaius is – doing whatever it is he does that enables him to spout ideas stolen from legends.’

Gwaine shifts on the wall, trying to unknot the heavy, stiff thing between his shoulder blades.

‘If Merlin were here – ’

‘But he’s not.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Gwaine says, keeping his tone low. ‘You banished him, and a couple of hours ago you believed he might be plotting with Morgana – but you didn’t put his name on the list.’

‘I’d thank you not to share that information. I’m rather hoping no-one will notice, at least not until long after it’s been sent to every outpost. And if someone does – well, I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ Arthur says, meets Gwaine’s eye askance, his gaze softer than Gwaine’s accustomed to seeing, some eager little conspiracy making it so. ‘Merlin never was, and never will be, an enemy of Camelot, Gwaine. Sorcerer or not, I’ve seen him do things which proved beyond all doubt where his allegiances lie.’ Gwaine goes to blurt out _why then_ s, but Arthur raises his hand for quiet. ‘My father saw Merlin do magic, and perhaps no-one would have believed him, but – his orders are still law, and were he to have given one to Sir Leon or the others – say to capture Merlin and have him tied to a stake and burnt – they would have had no choice. I had to do something. A preventive strike, if you will. Bit spur of the moment but better Merlin banished than dead.’

‘You’re king in all but name. You could have overridden any orders your father gave – or told him they’d been carried out.’

‘I know you don’t put much store in respect, but I do – and until he takes his last breath, Camelot is my father’s. Decisions he is not at liberty to make I will take on his behalf, but I will not do him the discourtesy of blatantly overturning his word, nor lie to him just because the fragile state of his mind would make it easy to do so.’ 

Gwaine flattens one foot to the stone, seeing what he saw that night again through the haze of Arthur’s words, trying to slot the pieces into place and feeling like he’s the only one who doesn’t have the corners to start with.

‘And when you’re king?’ he says. ‘When they’re your orders and the laws are yours to change? You thought about that?’

‘I think of little else,’ Arthur says, and looks down at where the rainwater sneaks dark patches onto his boots. ‘That and – how little room for manoeuvre there is. The show of things is everything in a kingdom. People need to see the walls are strong to believe that they’ll hold – their laws and leader no less so. If I act in a way that appears rash, there could be panic, so this morning I had no choice but to investigate the sighting as if I were assuming the worst of Merlin. All I could do was hope he had the good sense to have scarpered. I thought I could trust him with that – after all he’s had a lot of practice not being where he’s supposed to be.’ 

‘And if he’d been found?’ 

‘He would have been brought to me. I planned to send him to the cells to await trial – a trial I could have stalled almost indefinitely. Unpleasant for him, but I’m sure he would have understood, or found a way to escape.’

Gwaine pushes off the stone and holds his hand out to tell if the storm’s easing up. It isn’t, and the raindrops dance on his fingers and make him think fleetingly of Merlin with spiked lashes, smiling at him from the back of his horse. He swallows the last of his anger.

‘For what it’s worth, I feel like an arse for most of the things I said to you.’

‘Good,’ Arthur says, only just hiding his smirk, letting it turn into a frown both genuine and deep. ‘It’s a difficult time we find ourselves in. The people here have relied upon the ban on magic to keep them safe for years, and it would be naive to think my liking of Merlin – my vouching for what’s in his heart, as you put it – would be enough to reassure them. Before I make any changes to the ban, I have to establish a basic sense of trust.’ 

‘If you think the people here don’t already trust you – love you, even – you’ve not been paying attention.’

Arthur glances at him, and folds his arms across his chest.

‘Careful, Gwaine, that sounded like a compliment,’ he says, and Gwaine lets out a murmur of amusement. ‘This thing with Morgana is problematic. I had hoped Merlin would understand being banished meant he should flee to outside the borders. I thought he’d go to Ealdor –’

‘But when does Merlin ever do what you think he will?’ 

‘Exactly. What _was_ he doing?’ 

‘What he always does, I guess. Whatever’s necessary to keep you safe.’

‘If some of the things Gaius has told me lately are to be believed – ’ Arthur looks up, and he seems to have aged a decade, shadows beneath his eyes that speak of nights waiting for his father to die, eyes themselves turned newly thoughtful. ‘Well, let’s just say I have questions for Merlin – a lot of them. But patience – ’

‘Is the most over-rated virtue,’ Gwaine says, shaking the rain off his fingers. ‘Actually no, that’s virtue.’

Arthur smiles, and rubs at his eyebrow.

‘If you think I don’t miss him,’ he says, ‘you’re wrong. When is this rain going to let up? Geoffrey says he’s never seen anything like it. He keeps comparing it to something called the _Great and Treacherous Flood of Forty-Seven_.’

‘Sounds promising.’

‘Indeed,’ Arthur says, and looks over with that same soft conspiracy. ‘Curiosity got the better of me so I did have him look you up, by the way. It’s all waiting for me to read – assuming Morgana doesn’t get in and kill me. Care to save me the effort and just tell me who your history says you are?’

‘My father was a knight. Caerleon’s army,’ Gwaine says, and the hair on the back of his neck bristles, as it always does at the thought of him.

‘Interesting.’ 

‘Not really. The king he died for thought him nothing special.’

‘You fight brilliantly. I should have known it’s in your blood.’

‘Don’t get carried away. Everything I know about fighting I learnt on the sharp end of a bad debt or the wrong word at the wrong time.’

‘I can see why it’s easier for you to believe that,’ Arthur says, and Gwaine lifts a questioning eyebrow. ‘Earlier you accused me of being afraid of not being like my father. Perhaps you’re afraid you’re not enough like yours, so you seek out ways to save yourself from being compared.’ Gwaine runs his tongue over his teeth, keeping his face fixed so as not to give himself away. ‘Why didn’t you go with Merlin when he left? You could have skipped back to your old life. Maybe you’d have kept him out of trouble – or in a rather smaller kind, at least.’ 

Arthur’s gaze rests, unavoidable, on him, and Gwaine looks past him to the courtyard and watches rainwater torrent off the roof. 

‘You don’t have a theory about that too?’ he says.

‘I’ve looked at it every way,’ Arthur says, ‘and the only thing I can think is _because Merlin asked you not to_.’

‘Then you have your answer, sire.’

‘Half of one,’ Arthur says, and Gwaine thinks he’s going to push for more but he doesn’t. ‘You ever see a storm like this before?’ 

‘Never in land, only over the sea when she was really pissed off about something.’

‘It’s almost unreal.’

Gwaine’s head flickers with an idea – _if Merlin can hold a thunder cloud and stir the wind, could he do this?_ He stares up, trying to picture it: Merlin all gangles and sweetness, creating something wild and unrelenting. He wouldn’t put it past him, but he can’t think what use drowning the castle would be against invisible knights who presumably don’t really care about getting wet or rusting their armour.

‘You believe in destiny, Gwaine?’ Arthur says. ‘The way Merlin spoke – so certain – ’

‘Doesn’t matter what I think. Belief in a thing creates it. Merlin believes in his destiny – and in you and yours. It’s not about prophecies or fate – _that’s_ what makes his destiny real, his belief that it is. Makes him willing to do anything to serve it, and that’s a powerful thing.’

‘I’m not the only one he believes in.’

‘Yeah, and since we met I’ve lived with the idea I’ll disappoint him every moment I’m awake. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even you,’ Gwaine says. ‘But maybe belief in a man creates him, if he lets it. Maybe we should both believe in Merlin’s judgement of who we are and try our best to become what he sees. After all, isn’t what Merlin expects of us so much more than what we planned to do with our worthless, wretched lives?’

Arthur eyes him, and Gwaine can’t tell at all what he’s thinking. He ducks his head.

‘I’ll leave you be, sire, go and see what the current thinking on how to defeat wispy ponies is.’

Arthur nods, and Gwaine’s halfway down the corridor when he calls, ‘Going to knee me in the balls again, next time I ask you to fight me?’

‘Only if you really deserve it,’ Gwaine says, and Arthur waits until he’s around the corner before he laughs.

*

‘There you are – where have you been? Look, here.’

Gwaine’s barely through the door to Gaius’s when Gaius accosts him, shoving a folded parchment into his face and peering at him with annoyance over his glasses. Gwaine takes it and reads the front:

_FAO Court Physician, Camelot._

Gwaine turns it over and unfolds it, scans, but it appears to be nothing more than a note about a new cure for the common cold, at the bottom the words:

_Tobias M Bilge_

‘It arrived days ago,’ Gaius says. ‘I should have known straight away – but it wasn’t until I was in the library looking up those blasted spirit knights I realised who it was from.’

‘It’s not from Tobias M Bilge?’

‘Of course not, there’s no such person. It’s from Merlin.’

‘Why’s he writing to you about some plant?’

‘Quite obviously he’s not,’ Gaius says, and scuttles over to his work bench. He holds the paper just above a candle flame, making circular motions with it, his mouth open in expectation. ‘Quick – see – there – just beneath the letters? You have to read it before it cools.’

Gwaine leans in, and true enough the words are dotted with little swipes, some indicating whole words, others spelling something out letter by letter:

_Dear heart fellow physician,_

_Excu se the intrusion, but as I’m sure you are aware yourself, when one chances upon a new discovery one wants little more than to share it with one’s fellow devotees of science. On my travels I have encountered many extraordinarily good and indeed useful plants, but I am writing to you about one in particular, for this week – to my delight – I discovered something truly wondrous – a plant, the propertiesof which are about as exciting a sensory assault as anything you have ever seen! All its traits are documented save one – I believe it may hold the counter for that most pesky of winter troubles – the common cold! Meet extrixia balsam – this mousey, ordinary brown-leafed plant which can be made into a simple tea and administered as a soothing afternoon treat. Not even the most reluctant patient can object to this method of easing their suffering! _

_With this oncoming season promising a new and steady supply of sn iffles and coughs, I advise you to find some immediately – I’m happy to send directions to my own safe spot in the Forest of Balor, should you wish to tackle it alone – or should you need further guidance, a note will find me at my usual abode._

_Kindest regards, old friend,_

_Tobias MBilge_

‘How did he know you’d figure that out?’

‘S’called faith, my dear boy. Either that or he’s seen me set fire to the bench enough times to reason warm paper an inevitability.’

Gwaine takes the page, picking out the words and letters, and trying to pause so they make sense. 

‘ _Hello, sorry not sooner. Morgana on move. Plans assault. Have the counter for that. Meet extrixia balsam this afternoon. If not safe, I’ll tackle alone. A note will find me at my usual abode. Friend, M._ ’ Gaius looks up, and Gwaine meets his eye. ‘You said this arrived days ago?’

‘If I’d only realised sooner – extrixia balsam – it grows just on the castle’s south wall. I told him about it last year. I assumed he wasn’t listening.’

Gwaine’s heart pounds, head flooding with a panicked and unhelpful string of _no_ s. 

‘Merlin says he has the counter – he must be talking about the spirit knights, but what’s that mean? The counter?’

‘I wish I knew. Legend tells that nothing gives them pause and once they have a target they pursue it with – well, you’re a knight. I don’t need to lecture you on the fervour of a quest. It takes powerful dark magic to control any soul or spirit – more than Morgana possesses. She’d need a magical conduit – some artefact or talisman from the Old Religion. Removing the talisman from Morgana would potentially switch their allegiance, but I daresay she wouldn’t hand it over willingly.’ 

‘If the scorches where they were spotted were anything to go by then no, she didn’t.’ 

Gwaine sees a picture of Merlin sprawled on the ground in the rain, pale and far too still. He swallows, trying to push it out of his head. 

‘We need to do something – help him – ’

‘How?’ Gaius says. ‘We don’t know what his plan is, and our chances of even making it out of the castle – let alone locating him – in this storm are negligible.’

‘No they’re not,’ Gwaine says. ‘Before he left, Merlin gave me means to find him. I just don’t know how to make it work.’

‘Did he not also entrust you with something – something he values very greatly? Arthur’s safety?’ Gaius says, raises an eyebrow, and Gwaine frowns.

‘You know about that?’

‘Of course. And if Morgana is in the midst of some kind of attack, your place is here, doing what you swore to do – _protecting Arthur_.’ 

‘I just saw him. He’s fine.’

‘Then all we can do is keep researching, wait for the storm to clear, and ensure he stays that way.’

*

Evening falls, almost indistinguishable from the rain-soaked day, and after assuring Gaius he’d do no such thing, Gwaine tries to battle his way out – just to see if he can catch a glimpse of Merlin. Every door he tries forces him back, not even budging a crack, the weight of the wind too heavy, and he stands with another of the blasted gargoyles spewing rain onto his last pair of trousers and tries to force the magic Merlin put in his head to comply.

_This is the right time, Merlin. Let me come and find you. You know, once I do something stupid to get out like abseil down one of the walls in the middle of a gale._

Nothing happens but a mild twinge above his temple, and Gwaine gives up. With squelching boots and tingling, pent-up energy all the way down his spine, he makes his way to Arthur’s, his thoughts railing with damns about the weather and images of Merlin, stricken in the rain. Thoughts sticking on Merlin’s cold, lifeless body and his own impotent confinement, Gwaine slaps the wall. Impact stings red hot onto his palm but doesn’t quiet his head, so he kicks the stone hard enough to make his toes retreat and the pain bounce up to his knee. An undignified growl curls out of his mouth, and from beyond a door just off come the words:

‘Are you quite all right, Sir Gwaine?’

Lancelot drops down from the chair he was apparently standing on under the window, and steps gingerly into the corridor. Gwaine hops, clutching his toes and scrunching his eyes closed against a wash of irritation and agony.

‘Not really but thanks for asking.’

‘Something on your mind?’ Gwaine scowls a, _well obviously_ at him, and Lancelot dips his chin in contrition. ‘The storm and the spirit knights have everyone on edge,’ he hedges, and Gwaine rolls his eyes and puts the weight back on his foot, hoping a little bit that he’s broken something because then he could be pissed off about something real instead of what’s in his head. ‘It’s more than that, though.’

‘Merlin’s out there on his own, and apparently I’m the only one who even cares enough to – ’

‘You’re not,’ Lancelot says, his voice soft but firm. ‘Merlin is my dearest friend, and were there any way to aid him I would do so without hesitation, but Sir Leon was here not long ago with a report that visibility has never been worse – down to less than a foot, he said – and all ways in and out of the castle are completely impassable – even those underground. He’s done an excellent job.’ 

‘Leon?’

‘Merlin.’

Lancelot eyes the storm, then his gaze shifts back to Gwaine’s slowly, and he lifts his brow.

‘You think – you think he’s responsible for the storm?’ Gwaine says, pain in his foot forgotten. 

‘I’ve no doubt it’s his doing.’ 

‘Why?’ Lancelot shrugs a vague and unconvincing, _just have a feeling_. ‘You’ve seen him do magic, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve seen him do things I didn’t believe even as they were happening right in front of me,’ Lancelot says, lighting up, almost the same way he did when he was dancing with Gwen. ‘When we tried to approach the woods and the storm drove us back I suspected – now it seems obvious this is his response to Morgana’s threat.’

‘But what good is rain against ghosts? All it’s doing is keeping us trapped in here when we could be out there – ’ Gwaine stops when a realisation catches up with his mouth, _when we could be out there dying at the hands of a bunch of dead knights we’ve no idea how to fight_. ‘ _That’s_ the point. Merlin’s protecting the castle. Protecting us by keeping us inside. Of all the – ’ 

A collision of words burst in his head – stupid and brilliant and reckless and _Merlin_ – ricocheting around his skull. Lancelot smiles at him, soft with understanding, and Gwaine looks up at the window, trying to force the stammer of his heart to be impressed with the magnitude of Merlin’s tempest and the depth of his caring for his friends, rather than to stutter over the thought of him doing something so huge and dangerous alone.

‘Gaius has this theory about snatching some talisman off Morgana and switching the spirit knight’s allegiance,’ Gwaine says, ‘deal with them like that.’

‘If that’s what needs doing, Merlin will find a way to do it, I’m sure of it.’

‘That’s what worries me. Merlin – his destiny – it makes him blind to any concern about his own safety and – gods, I’m the last person to counsel anyone about that but – ’

‘I’ve known Merlin a long time, and I swear, Sir Gwaine, he has the greatest reserve of courage of anyone I’ve met – not to mention his powers are beyond anything I have ever seen or heard tell of. While the storm rages you can be assured he’s very much alive,’ Lancelot says, lips telling of amusement and not a little pride, ‘and probably giving Morgana hell.’

‘So we just wait?’

‘No. We watch him – and, as he would us, we wish him well, and try not to fear for him just because he fights in a way we don’t understand.’

Lancelot hops back up onto the chair, gaze on the rain as it torrents over the window. Gwaine stays for a while, because really, there’s nothing else for it, and the company of someone who understand – just a little bit – helps ease the churning of his stomach.

Eventually he leaves Lancelot to it, and ducks down the corridor to check on Arthur. He loiters there until Arthur tells him to get lost because he wants to go to bed and apparently being stared at isn’t conducive to sleep. Gwaine checks with Leon that all the entrances and exits are still impassable, and then goes to his quarters. There, a candle illuminates a scrap of paper on the table which reads:

_The medication you requested for your current trouble. Warm gently before use._

_Gaius_

Next to it sits a bottle of thin yellow liquid, and Gwaine picks the paper up and holds it closer to the candle, where underneath other words are revealed:

_If you’ve something useful to convey, perhaps a note using this left in his usual abode?_

Away from the flame the words disappear as if they were never there. Gwaine thinks of Merlin waiting outside the castle for Gaius – pictures his face when he realised Gaius wasn’t coming, how his eyes would have fallen to the ground and his brow would have twisted in sad little knots before he gave a determined nod of his head and thought, _right, just me, then_. The room sinks around him, too tight, and after uprooting half of everything he owns, Gwaine finds a quill and some real ink, and leans on the table, staring at the parchment. He sighs at himself, thinking, _you’ve slayed serkets and wyverns, you pathetic bastard, there’s no way you can be scared of a letter_. 

He grabs the quill, dunks it in the ink. It takes him four tries to decide on a message but eventually he’s staring down at something – even if it is far less elegant than Merlin’s in both composition and handwriting. He opens the other bottle. It smells to all hell, and he wipes at his watering eyes, then in a fit of curiosity dips his finger in the liquid and lifts the dampness to his lips. He sniffs it – acrid – then tastes, murmuring surprise that it’s actually not as bad as the smell. He dips his quill in it, and searches out the right letters, ticking them off one by one with as neat a marker as he can manage.

_Dearest Tobias,_

_How my heart gladdens itself to hear from you. Nice of you to stop whatever you might have been doing to inform me. You have provided a great service to Camelot with this remedy – which will be kept between ourselves – and at so little expense! Of course my nerves about the winter have been greatly eased. Let me know, if you make any more of these marvellous discoveries – however slight – on your travels._

_Best wishes for your continued good health,_

_Gaius_

He watches as the markers fade into the yellow of the parchment, strikes a line through _Gaius_ and draws an acorn, which fades into invisibility too. _Merlin’s usual abode_ , he thinks, and stares into the heart of the candle, listening to the rain, wishing he were just waiting for Merlin to sneak in again and make this room that. 

Gaius’s chamber welcomes him with a creak of door, and Gwaine edges in, wincing and on his toes until he realises he’s alone and Gaius must be with the king. Feeling lightly foolish he jogs up the steps to Merlin’s room, casts a gaze around in the dusky light, not sure what he expected to see when the storm’s still roaring. The paper sweats in his hand, and he wonders where he’s supposed to leave it, how Merlin will find it, shakes his head at how little he knows of magic and how few questions he asked when he had the chance.

‘Can you hear me, Merlin?’ he whispers. ‘I don’t suppose you’re here, are you? Maybe you can be in two places at once or disguise yourself as a chair or something? Is that how this works? It’s just me, by the way, so if you are a bit here you can come out. Hello?’

The room doesn’t answer, and Gwaine lets his fingers trail over the cupboard and then the bed, picturing Merlin amongst his things like he might be able to make him appear. He closes his eyes and thinks about Merlin’s magic – the touch of his fingers and the trickle of warm contentment – hoping to make it ignite or whatever it is it’ll do. Nothing happens, again.

‘I’ll just leave this here, then,’ he says.

He sets the note on Merlin’s pillow, and turns for the door. He can’t resist a glance back – and startles, because the scrap of parchment’s gone, faded out of existence like the ink. 

The courtyard-come-lake swells to over knee-height, and Gwaine wades through it to the hidden steps of the rampart. A clutch of guards struggle along the wall – palms out like they’re pushing a cart – and when he joins them Gwaine realises what’s going on above the castle is a poor imitation of what’s happening beyond. Lightning flashes inside clouds rolling a circuit around them – strikes the ground in dagger shots of violet light, the rain a thick whorl circling rather than spewing from the sky. What falls on the castle seems almost accidental, like the storm makes a boundary over the moat and all they’re catching is the overflow. If Morgana can even _see_ the castle – let alone attack it – Gwaine would be amazed.

Gwaine steps out into the squall. His hair whips back – soaking in an instant along with his clothes – the harsh race of it stinging his eyes and bumping up his skin. He leans out over the stone and lets the wind bear him up, filling his mouth with a fierce gust of air, letting it push through his splayed fingers and vibrate along his arms, make his chest sing with the glorious, ferocious unstoppability of it. Soon all he can hear over the tempest as it barrels past his ears is his heartbeat, but in the lull between each thunk there’s a whisper of a thought: _for years you searched for a place wild and unpredictable enough for you to feel you belonged there; it was a person you should have been looking for all along._

*

The storm eventually slows, stillness falling like a curtain does, quietly into place. First light peeks out from the retreating clouds and Gwaine scans the ground, not sure what he’s expecting to find amongst the shadows. Lancelot joins him – and they peer out as dawn comes, silently combing the landscape. Camelot’s trees have stood firm – heavy with water but otherwise all there – the ground beneath them ruptured in places, bare earth spewed up in great clods.

Leon joins them from the other wall, grey hollows under his eyes.

‘Any sign of Morgana?’ he says.

‘None. You?’

‘Not a peep. And the spirit knights?’

‘They’d have attacked by now if they were going to,’ Lancelot says, ‘agreed?’

‘Probably,’ Gwaine says. ‘We’d spring at the first chance. Spend all night locked out of a fight you want in on, you’re edgy enough to – ’

‘Kick a wall?’ Lancelot says, meeting his eye with a knowing glint.

‘Naturally we should be cautious,’ Leon says, ‘but some roofs will have sustained damage, and the prince is keen for us to get down to the town as soon as possible and offer our assistance.’

He bustles off, and in a series of gestures not unlike his own kind of magic, brooms and buckets appear to sluice the water away from the gates, the moat overflowing even before they’ve really begun. 

‘No sign of Merlin,’ Gwaine says.

‘That’s good,’ Lancelot says. ‘Means he walked away.’

Arthur meets them in the courtyard. Ostensibly he’s there to take a full report, but apparently after he’s assessed the state of things he can’t resist joining Elyan and Percival as they make a contest out of emptying bucketful after bucketful of water over the walls. Leon marshals a patrol to report on the lower town and beyond, and along with Lancelot Gwaine volunteers – Arthur giving him a nod of approval as he goes.

Thin mud splatters their boots and the horses’ stomachs as they ride, a thousand mini rivers flowing between the stones as the water makes its way down from the citadel. The sky breaks and shows them blueness as they clop into the town, the damage of the storm revealing itself as the loss of the Rising Sun’s sign, overturned stalls and battered thatches, beneath which people are already tutting, righting their things, and exchanging stories of the _no I never seen anything like it. Thought the end’d come. Had to fetch a cider to steady my nerves_ kind.

They dismount on the edge of the market. Leon bustles, asking about casualties, and Lancelot helps with a touch both gallant and deft. He knocks on doors and tells everyone the citadel is open to anyone in need of urgent help, spreads the word that the prince has declared the danger passed and the clear-up is to begin in earnest. Gwaine keeps half an ear on the rumours for a clue as to what happened with Morgana and Merlin, but if anyone saw anything, they’re not spilling it along with their tales of stray branches and wasted tea. He rounds an upturned chicken coup, and walks into a man bent almost double with age. 

‘Sorry, I didn’t see you there,’ he says, and tries to get out of his way.

The man mutters something about bloody knights, fumbles his way around Gwaine in a little dance, his hands clinging to his clothes to help him stay up. Once passed, he straightens and smiles – and there’s an echo in his eyes both sheepish and pleased – but before Gwaine can place it, Lancelot calls him over to help a woman with her cart, and the man’s on his way with something that looks a bit like a wink. 

They spend the day assisting where they can, and much later, bone-tired, Gwaine strips off his clothes. He drapes them in front of the fire, and a shiny green acorn shakes loose, and bounces on the stone. He crouches down to retrieve it, holds it between forefinger and thumb. _Merlin_ , he thinks. _Old before your time and apparently not a bad pickpocket. Should have known._ He tosses it into the air, and catches it with a snap of his hand, then gets up to find some clothes to don, suddenly not tired at all.

The king’s chamber makes a sorry sight, canker on the air, Uther’s tiny whimpers and fragile breaths punctuating the night. There are a million places Gwaine would rather be, but having shared with Lancelot the news, he headed up here to find Gaius, and found Arthur too, all the fleeting good-nature of the morning gone, his eyes solemn and hollow. Gwaine touches Gaius’s arm to draw his attention away from the table where he’s arranging the king’s nightly potions.

‘Tobias sends his regards,’ he says, quietly, and Gaius’s lips twitch to let him know he understands. ‘What was that stuff you left me to write with?’

‘Bull urine,’ Gaius says. ‘Bull is preferable for its pungency but any urine will do. It’s quite a well-known folk trick for illicit lovers. Are you all right? You look a little pale.’

Gwaine wipes his tongue on his sleeve, trying not to think about the tiny amount he ingested.

‘If you’ll excuse me sire,’ Gaius says, to Arthur, ‘your father needs more of his bedsore ointment. I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Gaius smiles faintly and shuffles out. Gwaine hesitates – but then he thinks, _what if this were my father?_ and sits in Gaius’s chair. Arthur looks at him across the slight bulge where the king’s chest rises and falls in too uneven a rhythm for any of the breaths he’s taking to be doing any good.

‘Thought I’d keep you company,’ Gwaine says. 

‘When I was a child my father would arrange for me to have company, command people to keep me entertained, and – by implication – away.’

‘Who can blame him? I bet you were a brat.’

‘My father’s dying. You’re supposed to be nice to me.’ 

‘If I were nice to you, you’d think I was up to something.’

‘You are up to something. You going to tell me about your friend _Tobias_?’

‘Nothing to tell, only that he survived the storm and he seemed to be making his way out of Camelot like a good boy.’ 

‘Taking all signs of Mor – ’ Arthur’s eyes dart to his father, and he frowns. ‘The sorceress and her herd with him, it appears.’

‘Seems so. Clear-ups going well. Me, I think Leon likes it, mopping. Maybe we should find him a lady before it’s too late and he proposes to a broom. What lovely children they’d have though, eh? Tall, thin, that hair – ’

‘Is there anything you can’t make into a story?’

‘Very little,’ Gwaine says, stretching out his legs. ‘Been weeks my ability to tell a yarn has been the only thing standing between me and starvation. Can’t wait for the day I’m in some far-flung tavern, telling tales of the time I fought alongside Prince Arthur of Camelot. Good for a whole dinner, that.’ Arthur smiles and shakes his head. ‘Talking of ladies – as we almost were – where’s Gwen? I haven’t seen much of her lately.’

‘She pops in when she can.’

Arthur looks down, and toys with the embroidery on the blanket.

‘Far be it from me to stick my nose in,’ Gwaine says, ‘but – in my experience, hiding from the thing you carry in your chest doesn’t work.’

‘How is that not sticking your nose in?’ Arthur says, but the widening of his eyes is more amused than annoyed.

‘Well, who else you got to talk to locked away in here every night? Gaius is a great old fellow but he’s hardly a man of the world. Or if he is I can’t imagine you want to hear about it.’ Gwaine slides down in his chair. ‘Gwen told you who she sang to?’

Arthur’s forehead crinkles with some debate, but then he looks up and meets Gwaine’s eye.

‘Didn’t need to. Much as I try not to see it, she and Lancelot wear their feelings on their faces every time they look at each other. Or more accurately _avoid_ looking at each other. That’s why I made you take her home. I knew he’d find her and of course I wanted her to be well – but that doesn’t mean I wanted to hear what they sang,’ Arthur says. His gaze drops and he fiddles with the folds of his father’s blankets. ‘Guinevere is confused. It’s – understandable. I was born to this life, but her choosing me would also mean choosing to adopt a whole new position and circumstance, one as unfamiliar to her as being a blacksmith would be to me. I don’t blame her for considering if that – if _I’m_ worth it, if there isn’t someone she might enjoy a better and easier happiness with.’

‘Magnanimous.’

‘Unavoidable. When you – ’ He hesitates, then acquiesces in some private battle. ‘ – when you love someone, their happiness is paramount, beyond even your own. Love, really, is being prepared to be miserable in order to give the other person what they want.’

Gwaine fingers the acorn in his pocket, thinking, _ain’t that the truth_. 

‘Lancelot’s a good man,’ Arthur says. ‘He would be a good choice for Guinevere.’

‘You don’t think you would be?’

‘Of course I do, but I’d be _amazed_ if you agreed.’

On the bed Uther groans, drags in a breath as if it’s sore in his lungs. He shifts against the sheets, hands clawed, his legs starting to run from something he can see on the ceiling. Arthur leans in and tells him to _shh_. It doesn’t work, and Uther chunters, his voice barely there it shakes so hard over the words:

‘Morgana, Morgana, Morgana, _please_ – ’

‘Where’s Gaius?’ Arthur says. ‘He needs another dose of the – the one that makes him stop dreaming.’

Arthur hastens to the collection of bottles on the heavily bolted-down table next to where Gwaine’s sitting, fingers fumbling over each one and tuts on his lips about labelling and how’s he supposed to know and where the hells is the physician, anyway? His chin shakes as his father’s voice gets louder and more agitated, and Gwaine goes to his side and puts a hand on his shoulder.

‘Nothing we can’t handle,’ Gwaine says, quietly. Arthur swallows, looks down, his eyes closing on shame and sadness. Gwaine goes through the bottles, finds one labelled with the time and the words _for stilled dreams and peace, two drops under the tongue_. ‘It’s this one – I’ll give you a hand.’

‘No, I’ll be fine.’

Arthur holds his hand out for the bottle, and Gwaine ignores him and moves to the bed, tilts Uther’s head, like he once saw Merlin do to Arthur, bringing the pillow closer to keep it set. Uther’s skin lies, paper-thin beneath his fingers – his skull fragile like a bird’s, the rest of him falling away into an uneasy, twitchy dance. He gestures to Arthur to join him, places the bottle into his fingers.

‘Says under his tongue, right? So – ’ 

Gwaine’s hand hovers around Uther’s chin, and gingerly he moves his jaw until his mouth complies and opens, his lips fighting and a terrified gurgle in his throat. 

‘Gwaine, you don’t have to – ’ 

‘I’m keeping you company, remember?’ he says, and Arthur nods and digs a knee into the bed as he forces drops of liquid underneath his father’s angry tongue.

*

Frost sparkles on the ground when life finally leaves the king.

Arthur is everything everybody expects – stoic and gracious and somehow dignified, even when tears make mirrors of his eyes. 

Leon is the first to say it:

‘The king is dead. Long live the king.’

Arthur nods, and when he stands to meet what he must, everybody bows.

*

The pyre towers, the biggest Gwaine has ever seen, and as the smoke rises and the flames cackle like witches he’s not such what they’re really watching burn: a body; a symbol; a whole era of their world. No-one else seems to know either, and as Arthur takes to the steps to speak, Gwaine can feel the crowd shift, anxiety rising off them like haze. If Arthur senses it he keeps it from his face, and his voice rings steady off the stone:

‘My father used to tell me stories about the Fallen Kings. He meant to instil in me their values – unflinching courage, great force of will, the idea nothing matters more than a life lived in service of the greater good. Those things I did indeed learn – but I also thought about the men who dwelt behind the myths, their private fears and what compelled their overcoming. Through their teachings and my father’s example, I came to see that a king is like any man. He must learn to accept both the kindness of fate and its cruelty, must plot his way through his doubts as if they are not there. A king differs from an ordinary man in only one respect: he will always be truest to the thing he loves most – and that is not a person, but his kingdom, and his people, for whom there is nothing he would not do. 

You may remember a fallen king. I will remember a father who loved Camelot more than anything in this great, wide world. Today is not a day to talk about the future, but to reflect on what the kingdom gained under my father, and what we have all lost with his passing. As a son I ask that when you go back to your day, when you walk around this city and these lands in the days to come, if you remember nothing else, remember my father’s love for this wonderful place. Let that love be his legacy, and let it live on in us all.’ 

The castle falls into the quietness of mourning, even the wind dropping away and saving the rattles of the pane for another day. In the evening, they gather outside Arthur’s chamber, the knights, all of them stripped of their ceremonial best, here as themselves and not as servants of Camelot. 

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t intrude,’ Leon says.

‘Bollocks,’ Gwaine says. ‘Time like this a man needs his friends. And like it or not, that’s us, so – ’

He knocks on the door. Tom opens it, bows four times – Gwaine has no idea who at and wonders if he might actually be part chicken. 

‘Tell the king he has visitors?’ Gwaine says.

‘Tell Sir Gwaine I can hear perfectly well for myself.’

Arthur’s at the window, watching the pyre light the sky orange and grey. Gwaine edges in, and the others follow, clutching their various offerings. Arthur regards them all in the reflection, then turns. He’s looked better, the last weeks of forcing potions into his father’s unwilling mouth while bile spilled over his fingers gifting his face the air of man who’s seen and done things which hardened him far more than any battle. He’s looked worse, too, some new certainty in his shoulders making him stand taller than he has in a while, the incipient smile he offers them genuine and a touch surprised.

‘Bit of a misunderstanding,’ Gwaine says. ‘We thought you might like a drink but we forgot to assign the task so you’ve a choice. Mead – ’ Elyan holds his flagon up. ‘Plain ale.’ Leon adds his. ‘Fortified wine.’ Percival shakes his. ‘Honey ale – ’ Lancelot lifts his and dips his head, and Gwaine gestures to his own, ‘ – and honestly I don’t know what this is, but it was labelled _special_ and it smells like badgers.’

Arthur runs a hand over his face, tired and sad and grateful all at once. 

‘Thank you,’ he says, and gestures for them to sit.

By unspoken agreement they ignore the chairs and make a circle around the fire, like it’s a campsite. They open the flagons and pass them about, talking small about the honey ale really tasting like honey and the badger thing having a surprising kick and that they should investigate what it is so they might take some on their next long mission to keep them warm. But as it always does, death pokes in, stoppers the flip and the glib, and they sit, bent-kneed, all of them thinking of loses of their own.

‘My father,’ Gwaine says, ‘I didn’t really know him, but still when he died, it set me adrift.’

‘Mine too,’ Elyan says. ‘I barely knew how to eat or breathe when I heard.’

‘Perhaps that’s the way it should be,’ Leon says, and Lancelot concurs.

‘Surely the proof that a man counts,’ Percival says, ‘is when the loss of him seems inconceivable and inconsolable to those he held dear.’

‘Is this your way of cheering me up?’ Arthur says.

‘No,’ Gwaine says. ‘It’s not.’

He hopes Arthur can hear the words he doesn’t say, the ones about him not being alone in this. Arthur looks at him across the circle, and just nods.

The others don’t last that long – an hour or so, maybe. One by one they dip their heads and get up, file out until only Gwaine and Arthur are left. 

‘I don’t need a babysitter,’ Arthur says. 

‘I’ve nothing pressing to do.’

Arthur crosses the room and looks out of the window. Below him Camelot glitters, candles that were held in vigil and lit in sympathy left below, others in windows, lighting whoever is inside as they sit with their thoughts.

‘All yours, now,’ Gwaine says. ‘What’ll you do with her?’

‘Whatever she needs, I suppose.’ Arthur’s eyes trace something happening in the distance, then fall to the sill. ‘That’s the way of it, isn’t it?’

‘She’s beautiful, your kingdom. First day I woke up here I thought it. You can try and resist but she gets under your skin, does Camelot.’

‘Not unlike – well, I never thought I’d say this, but – I wish Merlin was here. Sounds ridiculous, but I thought I saw him today, standing right next to me when I lit the pyre. Maybe I’m just so used to him being there I see him though he’s not.’

Arthur’s brow tightens, and without really meaning to, Gwaine says:

‘I could take you to him, if you want.’

‘You know where he is?’

‘No. I’ve no idea. But I think – well, my head thinks he’d let me find him, now.’

‘Have you had too much badger ale?’

‘You’re seeing Merlin at your elbow and _I’m_ the one who’s pissed?’ Arthur sighs a breath-laugh, and Gwaine knocks his elbow. ‘You want the truth? Merlin did something magic to my head before he left. I don’t know what it is but I guess he’s left a trail of magical breadcrumbs for me or something. He said when the time was right I’d know what to do, and maybe it’s the magic or maybe it’s the badger ale but – it feels like this is the moment to go and find him, that it’s what we’re supposed to do.’

‘That sounds crazy.’

‘Is there a better time for crazy? You said goodbye to your father so your day can’t get any worse, and you miss Merlin – and you’ve questions for him,’ Gwaine says. ‘Can you think of a better time to ask them than now, when you’re trying to work out what your Camelot will be?’ 

‘I can hardly leave. I’m the pr – king,’ Arthur says. ‘Although I suppose no-one would think anything of it were I to _appear_ to stay in my quarters for a – ’

‘A day or so?’ Gwaine says, and Arthur meets his eye. 

‘If this leads to my untimely demise – ’

‘What of it? Camelot’ll be fine – besides, if you’re the shortest reigning king in history at least people will remember your name.’

*

Tom’s skills do not lie in estimating the amount of rope it takes to successfully dangle a new king out of a window and safely deposit him on the ground. He strains to hold Arthur – sweating and swearing – and Gwaine eyes the earth and Arthur hanging above it.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Gwaine hisses down the wall. 

Arthur huffs – either exertion or irritation, Gwaine can’t tell – and then lets go of the rope. His feet land too harsh, and with a little bounce he topples onto his arse with a loud, squashy thud. Tom races over to peer out, his face falling as Arthur eyes him with imperious disdain from the mud. 

‘Oh ‘eck.’

Along the wall, a guard shouts – _typical, tonight they pay attention_ , Gwaine thinks. He meets Tom’s eye. 

‘You can hold me, right? I’m not as heavy as him. Tell Sir Leon we’ll be back soon and not to panic. Cheers, Tom, you’re a champ.’ 

Without waiting for a reply he swings a leg out of the window, coils the rope around his hand and drops until he can flatten his feet to the stone. Tom’s eyes widen as Gwaine lowers himself, walking down the wall until he runs out of rope. He casts a look over his shoulder, then pushes off and drops, landing in a crouch. 

‘Think we’ve been rumbled,’ Gwaine says, pointing to the guards along the rampart, as they gesture about whose fault it is. 

‘Any bright ideas?’

‘You know what never fails me as a plan?’

‘No, what?’

‘Run.’

Gwaine grabs Arthur’s arm, and they pelt for the stables. Luckily Tom’s better with horses than he is with rope, and two of them are waiting, loosely tethered. Arthur mounts his and rides for the gate, and Gwaine follows at his hoof.

The wind tickles cold onto his face with a promise of the winter they’re about to tip into, and they race through the town until the first of the fields lay out a blanket of cropped wheat beneath a sprinkling of stars. Gwaine slows, his breath fog on the air, and hearing him no longer behind him Arthur rounds his horse. 

‘What is it?’

‘Last time I was here – ’

Gwaine urges his horse to take a few more steps, and as she crosses the imaginary marker Merlin seems to have left, he feels again the earth warmth in his stomach which flowed out of Merlin’s fingers. Beneath the horse’s stamping hooves weaves a faint golden trail. It slinks to the trees, winds itself like a bow around, and points the way into the forest. 

‘Hello, Merlin,’ he says, and Arthur looks at him like he’s lost his mind. ‘This way.’

They follow the ribbon of gold, ride for hours, picking their way through undergrowth tangled tight to protect itself from the frost. The trees above sway a warning they should be tucked up in their beds, and when they emerge onto open ground Arthur rides hard, coaxing his horse to go faster and faster and faster across the plain and the foothills of the mountains, hunkering down in his saddle. _How trapped he’s been in the castle_ , Gwaine thinks, and understanding what it means to be separated from the bit of yourself which always likes to be free and a bit wild, he just follows the gold and trusts Arthur will catch up when he’s run off some of his grief. 

Dawn pushes cold flat grey onto the sky, and inside another forest they follow the gold along the bank of a stream. The trickle of water over black rocks fills the air with a gentle tinkle like bells – the trees stark with winter already, all their green gone save for a thick, verdant moss like a blanket for the bark. The trail thins from a wide ribbon down to barely there, and before the mouth of a cave it dwindles away into nothing but a hazy shimmer, like dust dancing in the light. 

They slow, and stop, and Gwaine slides off his horse. Behind him he hears Arthur drop to his feet, and the horses dip their heads to drink, making splutters in the water as it mingles with their breath. Gwaine edges over the boulders to a pebbled shore, watching his footing, the last of the gold flecks picking out the safest path. Inside the cave there’s the tell-tale crackle of a fire, and Gwaine says:

‘Merlin?’ 

The shadows inside the gaping entrance shift and Gwaine’s heart clamours, _if this went wrong, how will I ever find Merlin again?_ Even as he’s thinking it, though, Merlin peeks out. His hair sticks up like he’s just woken – longer – curling frames about his ears and falling below his brows, face bright with smile, and before Gwaine can say, _well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes_ , Merlin grabs his shoulder and pulls him into a hug. Gwaine clings to him, pressing his nose into Merlin’s ear. He screws his eyes shut and breathes him in, the warm, orangey scent of him, and they hold each other a notch tighter still, until Gwaine can barely breathe with it. 

They part just far enough to steal glances at each other – Gwaine taking in mended rips in Merlin’s clothes, a tiny new scar on his chin – wanting to ask a million questions and get him to retell every moment they’ve spent apart until he knows them like they’re his. Merlin touches his chest – like he’s checking Gwaine’s real – and Gwaine hopes Merlin can feel the grateful clatter of his heart, saying all the things he can’t until they’re alone. A stone skids, and Merlin clears his throat. He gestures to a woman wrapped in forest greens – dress patched and worn and dark along the bottom with dew. She’s so very like him he barely needs to say it, but Merlin does anyway:

‘This is my mother, Hunith. Mother, this is Gwaine.’

‘Delighted,’ Gwaine says, takes her hand and dips to kiss it. ‘The world owes you boundless thanks for Merlin.’

‘What’d I tell you?’ Merlin says, sharing a glance with his mother. ‘It’s like he can’t help himself.’

‘Make fun of me later,’ Gwaine says, indicating with his thumb where he left Arthur. ‘I brought you your destiny, if you’re interested.’

Merlin smiles, and taking that as invitation, Arthur picks his way over the rocks, and stiffly says:

‘Merlin.’

‘Arthur.’

‘Oh, just hug him like you want to, you uptight bastard,’ Gwaine says, and shoves Arthur in Merlin’s direction.

Having already half collided with him in surprise, Arthur holds one arm out, and Merlin rolls his eyes and steps into him, taking his shoulder in a tentative clutch. Arthur pats Merlin’s back and eases away again, swallowing heavily. 

‘I’m so sorry about your father,’ Merlin says. ‘He would have been proud of you for what you said at the pyre.’

‘You _were_ there?’

‘Of course – of course I was.’

Arthur nods – small and curt, like anymore will upset the balance he’s so carefully constructed. Hunith touches his arm and draws him into the cave and closer to the fire. She crouches down to arrange a pot – making tea, perhaps – but she doesn’t get very far into the ritual of it before Arthur looks around, his eyes narrowing on the cave’s interior. Calling it a cave does it a disservice. Far homelier than any Gwaine’s seen, it houses two beds – actual beds with actual blankets and a fur on one – and a hearth with pans and jars and even books. Shelves line the wall, littered with carvings of magical creatures – a unicorn, some kind of bird, and a series of perfect little dragons.

‘I know this place,’ Arthur says. ‘We were here before, with the dragonlord. What was his name? Balsomething – Balinor? Why on earth did you come back here?’

‘He was my father,’ Merlin says.

‘You said you didn’t know your father.’

‘I didn’t, until we came here. Found him and lost him in almost the same breath.’

Hunith turns away, and Arthur closes his eyes, awash with sudden understanding. Gwaine has questions – _you’re a bloody dragonlord, Merlin, why didn’t you say? Granted I should probably have guessed when you mentioned being pals with a dragon but really, you couldn’t have spelled it out?_ – but instead of cluttering the air with them, he ducks in beside Hunith at the shelves. Merlin and Arthur move off in silent accord, surrounding themselves with the privacy of shadows. Merlin cradles a palm to the back of his neck and stares at Arthur from beneath all his new hair, waiting, or maybe saying things only Arthur can read with his eyes. Hunith fiddles with the dragons, arranging them all so they each have someone next to them, and when she looks over at Merlin, her eyes are wide with a quiet hope swollen with worry.

‘He doesn’t look like the type to have the world on his shoulders, does he?’ Gwaine says, quietly. 

‘When we met his father didn’t, either. Sometimes I wish Merlin could find a dull but happy life.’

‘A man and his destiny, though, you don’t get in the way of that. I wouldn’t be fool enough to try.’

Gwaine glances at Arthur, presses his lips together, and Hunith’s fingers close on his arm.

‘Arthur might be his destiny,’ she says, her gaze a familiar mix of kindness and earnestness, ‘but you are his choice. Don’t underestimate that.’

‘Should have known he’s the type to tell his mother everything,’ Gwaine says, looking away as he smiles. ‘I’m sorry there’s so little about me to approve of.’ 

‘Merlin thinks differently. He think you’re very worthy of approval, and I trust he’s made the right choice.’

Embarrassed, Gwaine scratches his chin.

‘You want to talk to me about the dragons?’ he says. ‘Or – to be more accurate – you want to _pretend_ to talk to me about the dragons so we can eavesdrop on what they’re saying?’

Hunith sighs a distant cousin of a laugh, and looks towards where Merlin and Arthur stand.

‘I was led to believe the power of the dragonlords is hereditary,’ Arthur says. 

‘It is. Before you ask, I’m the one who freed the dragon your father kept prisoner, and no, you didn’t kill him – I lied about that – but he won’t harm Camelot again. You have my word. And his.’

‘You have the power to make a dragon keep a promise?’

‘Gwaine too, apparently. That’s arguably tougher.’

‘Anything else, Merlin? Any other – mystical or magical powers I should know about?’

‘There’s a couple of fairly dangerous items under my bed, and there’s a sword thing that’s probably going to come up – but that’s the big stuff, I think.’

Arthur shifts his weight, cocks his head to look at Merlin, like he’s doing it anew. 

‘You still – you confound me. Why didn’t you _say_? You talk so much – in all the years you’ve known me, you couldn’t find the time for, _oh by the way, I’m a sorcerer?_ I had to find out nearly everything about you from _Gaius_ and apparently there’s a lot he left out.’

‘That was your own fault for banishing me,’ Merlin mutters, but Arthur doesn’t retort and Merlin shoots a glance of self-rebuke at the bouldered roof, which turns thoughtful as his gaze skips the rock. ‘I used to think I was waiting for the right moment, but in truth there were dozens and I let them slip by.’

‘You didn’t trust me?’

‘What?’ Merlin says, focus dropping back to Arthur. ‘No – that’s not – it was just impossible to tell what you really thought about magic, because you’re a tangle of Arthur the man and Arthur the prince. You said to me once, _if I wasn’t a prince we’d probably be friends_ – and I thought so too, but between your royalty and my secrets there was always something in the way. I didn’t know if you’d react like a friend or the prince of Camelot. I hoped – but it’s a big thing to ask of anybody, that they overturn everything they’ve ever known, just for you.’ Merlin pauses, and looks at Arthur, completely direct. ‘I am sorry I told you so many lies – but everything I ever said about _you_ , believing in you – I meant every word.’

Arthur considers the stone just beyond Merlin’s head, and when he speaks he’s careful and controlled. 

‘I want to ask you something, Merlin – and I need you to be honest.’

‘Anything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, about my powers, about the past – ’

Arthur stills his words with a raise of his hand.

‘My concern is with the future. Were I to allow magic in Camelot once more, there’s a chance I would open us to various threats. I need you to look me in the eye and tell me whether your magic is strong enough to hold, and if your affection for Camelot and its people is deep enough that whatever comes – whether it’s someone like Morgana or some threat the likes of which we can’t imagine – you could keep the kingdom safe.’

‘Arthur, I can’t claim – ’ Merlin stalls, swallows. His fingers knot together but he looks right into Arthur’s eyes. ‘You’d really do that?’ 

‘I entrust Sir Leon with certain elements of Camelot’s defence, I would entrust you with those pertaining to magic. From what I know of your – shall we say _previous endeavours_ , I believe you more than capable, although I’ll have to have Geoffrey look into what we’d call you.’

Merlin’s quiet for so long it’s disconcerting. Hunith’s hand finds Gwaine’s arm again – tense – her forehead pulled into gullies, and Gwaine watches Merlin for some sign of what he’s thinking. 

‘I want that – ’ Merlin’s voice nearly breaks, but he takes a deep breath and goes on. ‘I want what you’re offering so much there’s not a word for it. Arthur, bringing magic back to Camelot – it’s the reason I’m alive. It’s the reason I led so many people – including my father and a really, really good friend – onto a path which – ’ Merlin’s eyelids fall. ‘They died for me, and that, and the debt I owe them – and everyone else who gave their lives or had them taken – it’s endless, and the only way I can repay it is to see magic flourish again. But you asked me to be honest, and the truth is – I’m the last person who can promise safety for Camelot. My magic is fallible. There’s so much I don’t understand, and sometimes things happen which I didn’t intend. Like the dragon – I didn’t know what he’d do, and Morgana, I’m responsible for her – and the singing – ’

‘What _were_ you trying to accomplish with that?’

‘You – it’s stupid – you had a lot on your mind. It was supposed to help you share it. But you see? The tiniest spell can spiral out of control and have horrible consequences – that’s how magic works.’

‘And those unintended consequences, Merlin,’ Arthur says, ‘how many of them, do you think, were due to you scurrying around, trying to fix everything in the shadows and keep a secret from the world?’ 

Merlin looks up abruptly, confusion racing in to take the place of regret on his face.

‘I – I don’t know. Some. Lots, maybe.’

‘Perhaps it’s not inconceivable, then, that were you to find someone to talk to about your magic and how to use it – someone with knowledge of tactics, someone less naïve and hasty than you – ’ Arthur pauses, tilts his head, holding back a smile at Merlin’s dawning comprehension. ‘ – or better, a round table _full_ of people like that, perhaps if you trusted them to advise you, those unintended consequences would diminish somewhat?’

‘S’not how it’s supposed to work,’ Merlin says, words wet with emotion. ‘I’m supposed to be the one leading you to greatness. I’m supposed to find mine on my own.’

‘Hardly seems fair, does it?’

‘I never thought of it like that before.’

‘That’s because you’re an idiot, Merlin. I’ve been saying so all along.’

Merlin laughs a half sob into his sleeve, peeks at Arthur like he’s expecting him to disappear into the phantom of a dream.

‘You really want me to come back? And you’ll lift the ban? Even though I said – ’

‘I asked you to be honest with me, and you were – even though it might cost you the very dearest wish your heart has to make. I don’t require more of you than that. And – hard as you might find it to believe – I never actually wanted you to leave,’ Arthur says. ‘Place hasn’t been the same without you. It’s been tidier – ’ Merlin laughs again. ‘ – it’s terrible. I can’t find anything.’

‘If I’d known banishing me would make you _finally_ appreciate me, I’d have told you years ago.’

Their gazes hold for a second, and then Arthur punches Merlin on the shoulder.

‘Are we going to do it, then? This destiny thing?’ 

‘Yes. Absolutely.’

Merlin beams, eyes glassy, and Arthur smiles, sheepish he’s caused such emotion. Some kind of mischief flows between them, as if they can’t wait to watch their future unfold. Gwaine remembers how they looked in Uther’s chamber, like enemies steeped in disappointment. Now they’re more brotherhood stars, the kind tossed into the sky where they’ll burn forever as a symbol of what faith in a person beyond all reason looks like.

‘Good. Now,’ Arthur says, his gaze falling to Gwaine and Hunith, ‘I think you owe us all the tale of what exactly happened with Morgana.’

The fire crackles, and Merlin’s fingers curl around his tea as he shrugs his way through his story:

‘I was here, you know, enjoying my banishment, when a friend – sorcerer I met a while ago – Gilli – staggered out of the trees. He was bleeding badly – I actually thought he wouldn’t make it – but with the help of my mother I tended his wounds and managed to piece together what he said enough to know Camelot was in danger. Morgana had tried to purchase a ring with powers from the Old Religion from him, and when he wouldn’t sell it she stole it. He spied on her, saw she used it to raise the spirits of a band of dead knights – and he tried to stop her but she set the knights on him and he barely escaped. 

While he recovered, I searched for a way to lay the knights back to rest – found a ritual from the Old Religion in one of my father’s diaries. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do it because his magic went so much deeper than mine, but I knew Morgana wouldn’t wait, so I sent word to Gaius anyway. I wanted to see him – have him tell me I could do it – but – ’ Merlin breaks off into a little sniff of laughter. ‘ – apparently he didn’t have the time to polish my ego. I waited for Morgana to attack, tried to persuade her that the knights didn’t deserve what she was making them do – but whatever leverage I might have had with her burnt long ago. We fought – and then Gilli showed up, even though I made him swear not to follow me, shouting about knights – real ones – approaching. Morgana loved that, _ready to watch your friends die, Merlin?_ Pissed me off enough for me to make it thunder, and I thought well, use what’s available. Forced her into the woods – her knights defended her – I made mine turn back for Camelot. I hid the castle with the storm – Morgana got so angry when she couldn’t break the spell – and one of her knights gave me this – ’ Merlin touches the scar on his chin. ‘Her hold on the magic was erratic – careless. Gilli distracted her – and I managed to get his ring back. He bought me the time to perform the ritual – but even when the spirit knights were gone Morgana wouldn’t give up – so I left the storm at the castle just in case and drew her away. Eventually I – defeated her.’

‘Is she dead?’ Arthur says.

‘She’s – contained,’ Merlin says. ‘I put her in the Crystal Cave.’

‘ _The_ Crystal Cave?’ Gwaine says, and Merlin meets his eye. 

‘How do you know about that?’

‘I met a fellow once who claimed to be searching for it.’

‘What’s the – ’

‘Near the Valley of the Fallen Kings,’ Merlin says, ‘there’s a cave filled with hundreds of crystals, and each of them reveal the future.’ 

‘How’s that contained?’ Arthur says.

‘It’s the worst place I’ve ever been. To stare at the future and know you can’t change it – it’s a living nightmare. And I knew what Morgana would see – you, Camelot, the kingdom you’ll build – and for her it’s literally hell to watch it happen and know there’s nothing she can do. I blocked the entrance too but it’s her rage and her grief for the power she thinks she’s entitled too which will keep her there.’

‘And her sister?’

‘Is weak, but will come for me, probably. I wager she won’t risk harming me, though, while I’m the only person who can tell her where Morgana is.’

‘That’s almost clever, Merlin,’ Arthur says. 

‘I know,’ Merlin says, widening his eyes, like it’s someone else’s story. ‘I wish you could have seen the fight. You would have been so impressed.’

‘Story of your life, eh, Merlin?’ Gwaine says.

‘Maybe in the past,’ Merlin says, meeting his eye. ‘I hope next time, things will be different.’

*

They see Hunith back to Ealdor, where she hugs Gwaine and whispers something to Merlin which makes his ears redden. They ride an hour or so – Merlin pressed to Gwaine’s back, driving him halfway to crazy by breathing wordless promises to his neck and needlessly drawing circles on his hips when Arthur’s not looking. Gwaine shifts back into him, trying not to think about the moment they can actually get their hands on each other, and picturing it until his stomach swirls, anyway. He runs his thumb across the back of Merlin’s hand, and Merlin gives a little hitched sigh, but before they can do anything more, ahead of them Arthur turns his horse to the West instead of heading across the plains for Camelot.

‘Wait,’ Merlin says, ‘where are you – ’

‘This is the quickest way to the Valley of the Fallen Kings,’ Arthur says. Gwaine glances back at Merlin over his shoulder to find him equally disgruntled at the thought. ‘We can hardly leave my sister in a cave, Merlin.’

They’re most of the way there when night falls. The sky sprawls, endless and blue, like the finest silk dress dotted with stars for jewels. Arthur’s snores finally echo on the trees, and Gwaine peeks out from his blankets at Merlin, stealing towards him, lighting the way for himself with a shining, spinning ball, like a different kind of moon. 

Gwaine closes his eyes, lets his jaw fall slack, and Merlin kneels beside him, fingers on his arm in a gentle shake.

‘Gwaine? Don’t tell me you’re asleep?’

Gwaine lets out an obviously false snore and Merlin sniggers and thumps him. Then he shudders at the cold, tucks himself under Gwaine’s blankets, knocking their knees into each other as he scrambles in. The light of the stars and the fire glints off his shaggy hair and his eyes, like that and a soft waft of fresh, chill air is all he is. Gwaine catches one of his knees between his in a hug, running his fingers up from Merlin’s hip to cup the warm skin under his scarf. Merlin settles a hand on his chest – just over his heart. Beneath his palm Gwaine feels his blood thump extra hard – rushing to be closer to his touch – and finding the answer he wanted, Merlin draws a lazy circle down his ribs and back up again, igniting a day’s worth of wanting. 

‘I missed you,’ Merlin whispers. 

‘How much?’

Gwaine eases him in, thinking to savour the moment, having waited so long for it. With a tilt of his head Merlin’s closer, quick breath fluttering against Gwaine’s lips. He pauses – enough for Gwaine to think _savour be damned_ and go fleetingly mad with not kissing him – nudges past his nose, and brushes into a kiss. Tiny thing, the cold of his lips – but it makes Gwaine’s heart swell, and he responds with a cracked exhale, dragging Merlin in with a handful of his shirt as their mouths close. Merlin’s arms envelope his neck, and when they open up for each other again it’s with a slide of hot tongues. They lose the world in favour of each other’s mouths, trading urgent breaths and little pecks and kisses so deep Gwaine feels them in his toes. Merlin tastes of yearning, and Gwaine doesn’t hold back, letting out as soft grunts the desperation and loneliness of living in Camelot without him. Merlin’s fingers dig into his jaw, his mouth pressing harder, and Gwaine pulls his body closer, hand sliding down Merlin’s spine and onto his arse, fitting them tightly into the space between each other’s legs. 

Arthur snorts, and Gwaine murmurs a laugh that’s more of a groan against Merlin’s lips.

‘I know he’s very dear to you – but holy damn, I wish Arthur wasn’t here.’

Merlin sniggers wetly into his temple, making Gwaine’s insides scrunch against the tickle of it. He breathes thickly at the night, and Merlin’s amusement dwindles as his eyes come back. His fingers fall down to Gwaine’s belt, tug the leather free, and as the buckle clinks open, he very barely whispers:

‘You can be quiet, can’t you?’

 _Hell_.

Merlin’s fingers slip their way down in a maddening tease which makes the answer very, very close to _no, no I can’t when you’re doing that_. The kisses that follow are more hoarse breath than lips. With no finesse at all Gwaine fumbles for Merlin’s lacings and shoves their shirts into bunches underneath their elbows, desperate for more skin. Freed, Merlin’s cock nudges, hot and damp at his wrist, and Gwaine lets out a hungry noise as he touches him. Merlin covers his mouth with his other hand and meets his eye with a raised eyebrow of _shhh_. Gwaine licks at his palm, and Merlin grins – eyes glinting with teases and warnings as he rocks into his grip. Gwaine breathes hard against his fingers, and Merlin nibbles and sucks at his neck then jaw, frees his mouth so he can do the same to his lips and keep Gwaine quiet like that. It works, until Merlin’s fingers twist in his hair and he can’t help the fractured _umph_ which escapes him. It earns him an amused, admonishing whisper of his name – which makes things worse, his guts clenching in a knot around it, and in some kind of retaliation Gwaine anchors them together with a splayed palm to the small of Merlin’s back, arches against him until his cock slides over Merlin’s. His lips part, letting out the tiniest little whimper, and Gwaine hushes him tersely, making Merlin have to swallow a laugh. They shift against each other, finding friction in each other’s dips – careful and staccato at first, mindful of the rustle of the blankets and their clothes, but then Merlin catches Gwaine’s lip between his teeth and groans, and their control blows out faster than a candle in a gale. 

Gwaine’s thoughts close to nothing, like they’re not in a scrap of forest with Camelot’s new king dreaming feet away, like there’s just his body and Merlin’s franticly trying to outdo each other with which has most missed which. They stifle their noises with sloppy kisses probably noisier than the noises themselves, touch and press and share it all, and it takes practically no time until Gwaine feels hot and scrunched to distraction, from his toes to his chest and everywhere between. Merlin licks at his ear and Gwaine loses it, comes against Merlin’s stomach. It flutters, and Merlin kisses him hungrily, thrusting hard and absent of real focus back. Gwaine sucks his fingers and wraps around him, strokes until all Merlin can do is fumble his lips into Gwaine’s hair in a vague attempt to muffle his irregular puffs of air as he comes too. They find each other’s mouths, kiss with thumping hearts and ragged breath until they both calm enough to leave open-mouthed markers of appreciation on the bits they might have neglected: chins and cheeks and eyebrows and ears and the corners of each other’s mouths. 

Apparently remembering where they are, Merlin bites his lip, and cranes to look over Gwaine’s shoulder to see if Arthur’s still asleep. Arthur emits an obligingly grumbling snore. Merlin breath-laughs against Gwaine’s mouth, then kisses him, leaves his smile there, just pressed. It makes Gwaine ache with longing for him – which makes no sense because Merlin’s right there, his very own tangled mess of itchy, sticky clothes, and warm, heavy limbs.

‘I wanted to sneak into Camelot and see you,’ Merlin says, voice loose and soft and making it so very easy to ignore everything but him. ‘So many times I’d get nearly all the way there and then – ’

‘What, you’d remember I had so many more important things to do and decide not to interrupt?’

‘And then I’d remember how you looked when I left. I couldn’t stand to do that to you again.’

He shifts up, kisses Gwaine’s forehead, mumbling apologies to his skin. Gwaine’s heart – still stammering – drops, and he brings Merlin’s face back down to his.

‘Will you ever get it, Merlin?’ Gwaine says, thumbing his cheekbone. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t withstand for you. If I could, I would tear down the sky, and I would fold it up and put it the palm of your hand. And when you had a fistful of infinity and starlight, I’d look at it, and I’d said, _you see that, Merlin? That’s nothing compared to what you’ve given me._ ’ 

‘But I didn’t give – ’

‘Who was I when we met?’

‘You were – _Gwaine_ ,’ Merlin says, with a confused, breathy laugh. 

‘And I spent my whole life not knowing what that meant or who that really was. I just bounced between different kinds of trouble and most people – quite rightly – barely gave me the time of day. But you? You made me feel like my life wouldn’t blow away on the wind, that maybe I counted for something. And you didn’t even know what you were doing.’ Merlin hides his eyes, and Gwaine gently tilts his head so he has to look. ‘Merlin, you accidentally make more of everyone you meet, whether it’s someone with a grand destiny like Arthur, or someone like Lancelot, or a no-good rogue like me. I don’t care what you do with your fingers and your other-language mumbling – _that’s_ your magic, and just being close to it, it’s more than enough to fill in any tiny cracks you might make in my heart.’ 

Merlin presses his lips together, and his lashes dip, long and slow. He lets out a noise – this tiny little exhalation at once amused and so much deeper. 

‘I think I might be a little bit in love with you right now,’ he says.

‘Only a little bit? I’m slipping.’

Merlin laughs, muffles the noise in the side of Gwaine’s neck, his breath hot enough to make the skin beneath it flush. Merlin fists up his shirt and buries deeper, and Gwaine lets him hide for a moment, then strokes the back of his head to draw him out, thinking that once upon a time he promised to tell Merlin something when this had all blown over. 

‘My heart is yours, Merlin.’

‘What do you do with a heart when someone gives it to you?’ he says, traces Gwaine’s temple with the tips of his fingers, awed and curious. 

‘You treat it kindly,’ Gwaine says. ‘That’s what I’ll do with yours, anyways, if it comes my way.’

Merlin squashes their noses together, and through an entirely new grin says: 

‘Your heart’s worth more to me than any fistful of infinity and starlight, you know.’

‘Good, because it’s pretty much all I got to offer and the sky’s a long way up.’

Merlin scuffs a kiss to his lips, and says:

‘You have magic too, you know.’ 

‘Do I?’

‘Always, you make me feel – _light_.’

‘Light?’

‘I have these huge things to do, and I used to feel so – tied down with them, sometimes. But you make me feel like I’m floating – and they’re still there, but when you are too I’m free of them. There’s nothing I would trade for that.’

Gwaine knows it’s just talk, that these are the things people say in moments like this, when they’re giddy with the collision of lust and love, but still, it warms him in places he didn’t know were cold.

‘That why you told your mother about me?’ he says. ‘You know, no-one has ever told their mother about me before.’

‘Maybe we just ran out of stories to swap. Or maybe I just like the ones that have you in them too much not to share.’

Gwaine laughs, and Merlin takes his face in his hands, pressing his thumbs into his jaw, catching his gaze, holding it, at once desperately earnest and endlessly kind. 

‘What I asked of you – for me and for Arthur – I’ll never ask anything like that of you again,’ he says.

‘You will if you have to. And I’ll do it gladly. That’s what love is, Merlin.’

*

A kick to his foot tugs Gwaine out of a very pleasant dream about Merlin and the sea, and he squints up at the day. Arthur blots out the sun, and peers down at their tangle of limbs with a mixture of disbelief and disdain. Gwaine shifts his hand to the first bit of Merlin he can reach and tries to subtly shake him awake, wincing when Merlin unfurls from his shoulder and places a low, contented little grumble of a kiss to his neck. His eyes open a slit, and he goes to say something, the word wrenched from his lips when Arthur says:

‘Morning, Merlin.’ 

‘Ar – Arthur,’ Merlin says, and scrambles upright, hastily rearranging his clothes and then trying to flatten his hair.

‘Is there a bedroll shortage?’

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Merlin says, head tilted like it’s a general and unrelated inquiry. Arthur raises his eyebrows at him. ‘Ohhh. You meant – ’ He swallows. ‘Um, we – well, we – we’re – ’ Merlin looks to Gwaine for help with the word and Gwaine shrugs back an, _I don’t know, you’re on your own here_. ‘We do – that. Sleep – well, together. That is to say we haven’t recently because I was banished and he wasn’t, but in the past and definitely in the future – ’

‘With _Gwaine_?’ Arthur says. ‘ _Really_?’

‘Hey,’ Gwaine says, ‘I have ears _and_ feelings.’

‘I like him, Arthur. More than, as it happens. Be nice if you were happy for me.’

Arthur’s lips purse, like he’s biting back a hundred things he wants to say. He settles on pointing at Gwaine and spluttering:

‘You – if you – Merlin is – if you – gods, I don’t even know what to threaten you with that you’d take seriously, but just know that there are – _threats_ here. Big ones.’

‘Duly noted, princess.’

‘Right, well – very – well, then. Glad that’s – sorted. Now if you two are done _canoodling_ we need to go and imprison a dangerous sorceress and get back to Camelot.’

Merlin’s lips pinch together as he tries not to laugh, and he offers Gwaine a hand out from underneath the blankets.

The Crystal Cave greets them from below a cold, winter-sun sky, its entrance covered by a cascade of grey boulders. Arthur frowns at the task, shifting a medium rock to the side before Merlin taps him on the shoulder and gestures at himself with a kind of, _it’s my rockslide, I’ll do it_. Arthur straightens and stands back, and as Merlin lifts his hand his eyes flash gold, goosebumps prickle Arthur’s skin. His command strikes the air, and at the top of the pile a collection of the rocks jiggle before falling away. Arthur’s jaw tenses, but he keeps on watching, and when Merlin’s made a gap big enough to crawl through and his eyes are blue again, his gaze darts to Arthur’s, checking his reaction.

‘That’s – efficient,’ Arthur says, and starts to clamber over the rocks to the gap.

Merlin puts his hand on his arm and gets in his way, climbs up to the hole he’s created, and peers in.

‘Takes some getting used to, right, that he doesn’t need you to protect him?’ Gwaine says.

‘I will anyway,’ Arthur says, and follows Merlin in.

The cave reverberates with angry magic, a strange, quiet shriek pinging off the walls in a circular echo. Crystals – hundreds of them – jut out, pale, glassy, jagged and unearthly, and in them Gwaine can see the three of them and Camelot and the knights and Gwen – Arthur in a crown in the snow – all of them sitting at a round table, discussing something wordlessly but grave.

‘That’s the future?’ Arthur says, moving closer to a large, triangular crystal, fascinated as he watches the flat, opaque version of himself make a speech.

‘Don’t look,’ Merlin says, and leads him away. ‘No good comes of it. We need to be quick.’

Arthur reaches for his sword, and they round a dark, shiny rock, the quiet shriek getting louder and louder. Merlin motions for them both to stay back, edges into an alcove hewn from the wall. 

On the ground, curled up, forehead to her knees, hands with bloodied fingernails gripping her skull, is Morgana. The tatters of her dress make a nest around her, and at first Gwaine thinks she’s shielding her ears from the noise but then he realises it’s her shrieking, high and piercing, to the dirt.

‘Morgana?’ Arthur says, and he steps towards her, hand out to touch her shoulder.

She rears up like a snake about to strike, and Arthur shows her his palm. Her head shivers with rigid, tiny, shakes, her eyes frantic, wild, and dark with confusion and hatred, and she snarls a spell but Merlin does something which makes it fritter away.

‘I don’t want to hurt you again,’ Merlin says. ‘But I will if I have to.’

Morgana’s hands twist in her dress – Gwaine can’t tell if it’s fear or rage balling them so tightly – and Arthur sinks to a crouch next to her. 

‘We’re taking you back to Camelot,’ he says, and lifts her to her feet, gentle, even though she showers him with curses and scratches at his face.

*

Camelot’s flags flap out hellos, and they trot through the town. Faces turn to Arthur, knees bend, and in his lap Morgana shakes, near delirious as she clings to him, alternately trying to hit him, get out of the magical rope binding her wrists, and muttering – terrified, like an echo of Uther – into his neck. Arthur’s arm tightens around her, like he’s warring with himself about whether she’s his sister or his prisoner first.

Merlin’s tension tingles up Gwaine’s spine, and as they pass under the gate he counts the guards and maps the fight they’d need to win to escape, just in case – not able to let his guard dog impulses down, even now. The guards spring into action as they approach, hands flying into a salute. One of them spots Merlin – another Morgana – and between them fly gestures of wordless consternation and confusion. 

They clop into the courtyard through a small crowd, guards and knights and townspeople clustering, muttering, _is that..?_ Leon strides, parting the throng, his eyes wide on Morgana, beckoning to the others knights to hurry and drawing his sword.

‘Sire, had we known you had word about the Lady Morgana’s whereabouts, we should have all – ’ He stops as Gwaine shifts slightly in his saddle, revealing who he’s sharing with. ‘Merlin? Um – ’

Leon looks behind him, to Elyan and Percival and Lancelot. They gather, waiting, and Arthur says:

‘Help me with her?’ 

Leon reaches for Morgana. She fights him – a flurry of ineffectual fists and muttered threats about what she’ll do if he doesn’t get his hands off her – but Leon ignores them like they’re not there, and sets her on the ground. He orders Percival to seize her, and he halts her struggles with less effort than it would take him to crush a flower. Arthur dismounts, gathering his reins and handing them to Tom – who has scampered down the steps, grey and wide-eyed at the return of his predecessor. Gwaine gets off his horse too, Merlin swinging down beside him, and Leon looks from him to Arthur to Morgana, waiting. Lancelot meets Merlin’s eye, cautious and hopeful, but Merlin gives nothing away, just quietly stands by Arthur’s side. 

For a moment Arthur doesn’t say anything and a whisper starts, spiralling out, _isn’t that his servant? The one they say’s a sorcerer? – I know – what’s he doing back here? And the Lady Morgana too? Are they both captured, then? – ooh, will there be a bonfire? I could do with a warm._ Gwaine wonders what Arthur’s playing at, and then as Arthur regards them all he gets it: this is what Arthur wants, for people to see, because the show is truly everything in a kingdom, especially when it’s new.

‘Your orders, sire?’ Leon says. 

He winces softly in expectation, maybe picturing himself alone in the dark, blowing out the candle on a day full of things he didn’t want to do. Lancelot – subtly but still – fingers his sword, and Arthur hops up a few steps, waits for people to orient around him like it’s a stage. 

‘The Lady Morgana has been captured. She will be attended by the court physician, and if she’s fit of mind, she will be tried for treason,’ he says. ‘Her capture was orchestrated and executed by sorcerers who risked their lives to keep Camelot safe. One of them stands before you now.’ Arthur pauses and gestures to Merlin, who shifts his feet and looks a bit like he’d like to slip between the cracks in the stone and hide. ‘Merlin has proved himself a true servant of and devoted friend to Camelot. For too long this kingdom and magic have been at war. No more. By the order of I, Arthur Pendragon, the ban on magic is lifted, and it is my belief that this will usher in a new era of prosperity and freedom for all.’

There’s no shocked gasp or cheer. People look at each other with big eyes like they’ve heard some interesting gossip they want to run off and share, and when it becomes apparent Arthur’s not going to make a further proclamation, a couple of people drift off muttering, _well I never – I know, what’d his father think? Still, I’ll be glad this winter when I can get my hands on that heating charm again when the nights draw in. My lungs haven’t been the same without it_. Merlin swallows and leans into Arthur. 

‘Easy as that?’ he says, through a forced smile.

‘Don’t knock it, Merlin. Just enjoy the moment. Our own brief history tells us it won’t last.’ Merlin laughs, and Arthur looks at him, knowing and maybe even fond, like he’s looking forward to some catastrophe just to see how they’ll tackle it together. He nudges Merlin’s elbow. ‘I bet someone’s pleased to see you.’

Merlin follows his gaze to where Gaius strides down the steps, grinning. He and Merlin fall against each other in an embrace, and then Gaius holds him at arm’s length. 

‘I never had any doubt, my boy. Not a second.’

They beam at each other, until Arthur claps a hand on Merlin’s shoulder.

‘Right, well, there’s much to do,’ Arthur says, and Gaius bows.

‘Indeed, sire. Geoffrey wants to talk about your coronation.’

‘Actually, I do have a question for him...’

Arthur makes his way up the steps, and Merlin accepts congratulations and _welcome back_ s from Leon and Lancelot and the others, smiling and looking up at the buildings with wide eyes, like he’s finally, truly found his home.

 _Not a bad choice, Merlin_ , Gwaine thinks. _She’s a beautiful spot, is Camelot_.

*

As Arthur calls his inaugural session with the court to close, outside the window, it starts to snow. The courtiers and the other knights leave, relieved that – declaration about magic aside – Arthur has been anything but rash. Gwen hovers at his side, unsure where to put herself, and she says something quietly to him, then files out with the rest. Arthur watches her go, and Lancelot catches her eye, give a little bow of reassurance, and smiles. _Melancholy goat but a handsome bugger_ , Gwaine thinks, and he doesn’t really blame Gwen for smiling back, because he’s far more than that, too.

‘First one done, then,’ Merlin says, with false chipperness, and Arthur looks at him like he’s torn between ruffling his hair and kicking him really hard for being so obvious. ‘Went well, I thought. Gwen’ll get used to it. Just – daunting for her.’

‘We both know she will never love me, Merlin, not as I love her. Respect me, perhaps, like me enough to pretend and make a wonderfully convincing show of it, but – she and Lancelot, they – well, you cast the spell and you felt it work within you. You know what it means when you sing to someone, that they’re the most important person to your heart. It may be fought but will never be entirely overcome,’ Arthur says.

‘What will you do?’ 

‘Ask her to marry me.’

‘What? Arthur, that’s – ’

‘Camelot needs a queen, Merlin. Maybe we’ll have a year – two, if we’re lucky – before their feelings are too strong to be denied any longer. That should be enough time.’

‘For what?’

Arthur’s eyes are everywhere, the ceiling, the tapestries, the windows, the floor – until Merlin puts his hand on his arm and quietly says his name. Arthur swallows, mastering himself with impressive speed. 

‘Camelot used to be a place of hope,’ he says. ‘It will be again.’

‘I don’t see how they’re connected.’

‘You can’t _make_ people hope,’ Arthur says. ‘They have to see things with their own eyes which inspire it in them. The people here, they’ve spent almost a quarter of a century wallowing in fear and suspicion, the occasional feast thrown over the top to mask it. I will give them something real to celebrate and live for – the belief that here, anyone can prosper, and birth does not define who you are or what you will become. They’ll see that in my Camelot, this has already happened, because around my table are men of noble birth and not, who became knights through deeds, not family trees. I’ll show them a Camelot where anything is possible, and they’ll believe in it, because they’ll see that here, a sorcerer can become the most trusted friend to a man raised to hate everything he is, and a woman who was once a serving girl sits beside him on a throne.’ 

Arthur’s words sink, as certain and all-encompassing as the snow.

‘You would break your own heart for Camelot?’ Gwaine says.

‘It’s already done,’ Arthur says, meeting his eye. ‘At least this way I have a chance to build something with the pieces.’

‘Arthur,’ Merlin says, and his voice cracks. 

‘I’ve made my decision, Merlin.’

Merlin looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. 

‘You’ll never be alone. I promise.’

‘Thank you. I’m sure there will be days when that will be – very irritating,’ Arthur says. He swallows, fingers his eyebrow, and sighs at the Great Hall. ‘I need to go and – ’ He pauses, looks at the window. ‘I’m sure there’s something I should be doing.’

‘I know Geoffrey wants to talk to you about the vital matter of choosing a crown,’ Merlin says. ‘And there’s the even more vital matter of the guest list. Gaius was saying he’s had so many requests he doesn’t know what to do with them.’ 

Arthur smiles, gaze still on the window, where Camelot’s sky sprawls away, crisp and white and perfect.

‘It’s a beautiful day,’ he says, and he looks at Merlin and lifts an eyebrow.

‘You’re not thinking what I’m thinking?’ Merlin says.

‘I fear I might be, gods help me.’

‘Geoffrey will have a fit.’

‘Let him,’ Arthur says. ‘Courtyard. This afternoon. No invites, no dignitaries – whoever can squash in is welcome. I’ll wear the crown I’ve always worn and address the people from amongst them.’

‘I’ll get you a box to stand on. Afterwards?’

‘I’m sure we have ale in the stores, and doesn’t one of the stable hands play the lute?’

‘Now we’re talking,’ Gwaine says. ‘That’s my kind of coronation.’

‘Best get to it then,’ Merlin says, walking backwards away from them. ‘Bagsy not being the one to tell Geoffrey.’

He runs around the turn of the door, and they follow him into the corridor, Arthur calling:

‘You can’t _bagsy_ tasks, Merlin, I’m _the king_.’

‘Not until this afternoon you’re not.’

‘If we both live to be a hundred,’ Arthur says, ‘will you _ever_ learn to remember who I am?’

‘Nope,’ Merlin says, dropping down the first of the steps. ‘S’why you keep me round. It’s why you keep Gwaine around, too. Says a lot about you.’ 

‘That I’m a sentimental fool?’ 

At the foot of the stairs, awash with white, winter light, Merlin fixes Arthur with a gaze so direct he could melt armour with the fierceness of his veracity. 

‘It says,’ Merlin says, ‘you surround yourself with people who will never, ever care about your crown because you know, Arthur Pendragon, you _know_ that’s the way you’ll stay true to who you want to be. Your title will always gift you some people’s respect – but there’s another kind you have to earn on your own, and you know which one is really valuable. Your destiny was to be a great king, but you choose to be a great man, too. One I’m proud to share my fate with. Already, and we haven’t even done anything yet.’

‘You know,’ Arthur says, through a rueful smile, ‘I think I preferred these speeches of yours when I thought any wisdom in them was accidental.’

‘You never thought that.’

‘You’re right. I didn’t.’ 

They cross the stone in the snow, heading for the most unlikely of crownings and the dawning of an utterly new era. Gwaine stares up at the sky as it spills soft whiteness down, and feels everything to come in the air, like it’s all just sitting there, waiting for them to chase.

‘Anyone else miss the singing?’ he says. ‘I miss the singing. This feels like _such_ a singing moment.’

‘Well lead on, Gwaine,’ Arthur says, ‘lead on.’

Gwaine sings the thing unfurling in his stomach, spins a tune about Camelot. Merlin joins in, and Arthur hums, grudgingly – Leon, Percival, Elyan, Gwen, and Lancelot falling in too. All of them know the notes by instinct, because they all feel the same thing: on the search for a home they instead found someone they hadn't thought to look for; between them created this kingdom where nothing and no-one is ever truly predictable; have wound together in love and created a song, in which lingers the weight of who history will remember them for being. 

Gwaine’s palm tingles. He wonders if there are new lines being drawn across it, or if he’s just feeling a vague echo of something he never thought he’d be able to reach up and touch: the brush of infinity and starlight, right there in his hand, just waiting for him to close his fingers around it and catch it in his fist.


End file.
